How to get involved with GMO legislation

Learn about: How to get involved with GMO legislation from Gary Hirshberg,...
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How to get involved with GMO legislation

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What we as parents and citizens need to understand is that we're not being fully represented in Washington. I spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill. And while I know that 92-96% of consumers want the right to know what's in their food, you need to understand that every day there are corporate interests fighting against your right to know. Capitol Hill is loaded with lobbyists for particularly the 5 large chemical companies who are the patent holders who own these crops. And you have to understand that when you talk about Monsanto and Dow and Dupont and Syngenta and Bayer, those big 5, this is a very profitable technology for them. They make a lot of money on their patented seeds, the genetically engineered seeds. And then they make a lot of money on the chemicals that they own that result from using these seeds. So the last thing they want is anything that's going to reduce their profits. You and I don't have time or money to be on Capitol Hill as these lobbyists are, because we don't have anything other than our interests and the interests of our children and their children to protect. That's why we need to band together. Every day there's legislation, there are bills being passed. The recent Monsanto Protection Act for example is one of the really terrible pieces of legislation out there that essentially limited citizen's rights to know, that limited our rights as individuals and states to stand up for our right to know. And actually it streamlined approval of crops which are not necessarily in our best interest. We need long-term independent health and safety testing, long-term independent environmental testing, and in the meanwhile while we're doing that testing, we as citizens need to be able to choose. We need to send a message back up to the food companies that at the place we vote every day, which is the cash register. We put a lot of emphasis in this country on our voting at the ballot box once every 2-4 years. But every time we purchase something, we vote for the kind of world that we want. The way that we invent the future is by sending those votes back up to the retailers and the food companies. And believe me, as a food company, as a manufacturer, I take those votes seriously. What my customers are saying is what I'm going to do. And if we send a vote up there that says, no-no-no. We want the same rights as these large chemical companies. We want foods devoid of these ingredients. We want foods devoid of genetically-engineered ingredients. We want foods devoid of herbicide proliferation. Those votes will be counted.

Learn about: How to get involved with GMO legislation from Gary Hirshberg,...

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Gary Hirshberg

Gary Hirshberg is Chairman of Stonyfield Farm, the world’s leading organic yogurt producer, and Managing Director of Stonyfield Europe. He is also the Chairman and Founding Partner of “Just Label It, We Have the Right to Know,” the national campaign to label GE foods. Gary has received twelve honorary doctorates and numerous awards for corporate and environmental leadership including a 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award by the US EPA.

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