Making Democracy Work
LWVUS is conducting a study to update its agriculture position. Subject to review and recommendation by the update committee, the Board also adopted this scope for the update: "The Agriculture Update will focus narrowly on: 1) current technology issues in agriculture including genetically modified organisms (GMOs), herbicides, pesticides, agriculture water pollution, aquifer depletion, antibiotics in livestock, and accurate food labeling; and 2) current agriculture finance issues including consolidation in agriculture industries, crop subsidies and the federal agricultural regulatory process." Study materials developed by the national study committee will be available in spring or summer 2013.
Consensus meetings of local/state study committees must be held before April 2014 and results submitted to the LWVUS study material by April 2014. Consensus questions have not yet been developed.
On this site, we will post additional articles and links to current events or NH-specific aspects of agriculture.
All League members are encouraged to become informed on this topic in order to be part of the consensus phase of the study.
The Quad State meeting (April 27-28, 2013 in Wells, ME) will have as one of its focus areas this agriculture study. A guest speaker (Prof. John Carroll of UNH) will give us the New England perspective on some of these issues. One of the LWVUS study committee members is from Maine, and we hope she will also offer a workshop at Quad State.
March 2013: One view of the effect on crop productivity in the US of genetically modified corn and soybean--Union of Concerned Scientists.
April 2013: Court cases about state regulation (labeling) of genetically engineered food
The link below will take you to the recently developed site regarding state activity dealing with GMO labeling. It is quite recent within the past month or so. If you click on the word `map' along the top menu you can then click on individual states. <http://righttoknow-gmo.org/mission>
Read several articles in theMay 2, 2013 edition of the science magazine NATURE, all about genetically modified crops. There is balance in these articles. One points out that the biggest GMO crops are soybeans, cotton, corn and canola, and that the US, Argentina, Canada, India, and Brazil are the major planters of GMO crops. Good reading, with colored charts.
LWVNH convention (June 1, in Hopkinton Library) will have as guest speakers the chair and ranking minority member of the NH House Agriculture Committee, Rep Tara Sad (D) and Rep Bob Haefner (R). Plan to attend! (See Calendar page for details.)