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Action Alert - visit www.farmtoconsumer.org
Tell Your Senator to Vote YES on Tester Amendments
Speak up for farmers, not Agribusiness & GMOs

Monsanto and Agribusiness companies have managed to insert two dangerous provisions into the Continuing Resolution ("CR") that is about to be voted on by the U.S. Senate.  
 
The first provision is the "Monsanto rider" that destroys the few protections that currently exist against the planting of new genetically engineered crops.

The second provision will allow giant Agribusiness companies to continue abusive and deceptive practices that hurt livestock and poultry farmers.  
 

The good news -- Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) is introducing amendments to strip both biotech riders out of the CR.

 

The vote is expected to occur this afternoon, so we need your help right now!    

 

 

TAKE ACTION

Please call both of your U.S. Senators, and urge them to vote YES on the Tester Amendments to remove both riders.  

 

If you don't know who represents you, you can find out online at www.senate.gov or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

 

Message:

My name is ___, and I am a constituent.  I am calling to ask that Senator ____ support both of the Tester Amendments to strike the biotech and anti-competitive riders from the Senate Continuing Resolution. Please vote YES on the Tester Amendments.

Points to add:
  • Protect family farmers from abuses by the meat industry
  • Support review of biotechnology products. Congress needs to protect the few safeguards we have in place for genetically engineered crops, not eliminate them to appease a handful of large companies.   
  • Stand up for family farmers, ensure that independent producers have a fair chance in the livestock market.
  • Ensure that courts can review biotechnology products. 
More Information
You can learn more about GMOs and fair market issues on our website.

Rider1  

BIOTECH RIDER (Section 735) - GMO Crops

Though wrapped in a "farmer-friendly" package, the biotech rider (section 735) is simply an industry ploy to continue to plant GMO crops even when a court of law has found they were approved illegally.

 

The provision is intended to force USDA to grant temporary permits and deregulations of GMO crops even if a Federal court rules that USDA hadn't adequately considered the environmental or economic risks to farmers. This would negate any meaningful judicial review of USDA's decisions to allow commercialization of GMO crops.

 

If a GMO crop approval was shown to violate the law and require further analysis of its harmful impacts (as several courts have concluded in recent years, for example with GMO alfalfa and GMO sugar beets) this provision would override any court-mandated caution and allow continued planting and commercialization while further review takes place.

 

The provision is completely unnecessary. No farmer has ever had his or her crops destroyed following such a court ruling. Every court to decide these issues has carefully weighed the interests of farmers, as is already required by law.

 Rider2

 

ANTI-COMPETITIVE RIDER (Section 742) - Livestock & Poultry Impact  

The anti-competitive rider (section 742) deals with a law from the 1920s, the Packers and Stockyards Act ("PSA"), which was intended to provide protections against anti-competitive behavior in the livestock and poultry industries. In essence, the PSA was the Sherman Antitrust Act for agriculture. Although the PSA is a good statute, the USDA never properly implemented it.  And that failure over the years has allowed large corporations to practice a variety of abusive, unfair, and deceptive practices that undermine the free market.

  
A coalition of family farmer, independent rancher, and consumer groups fought for a provision in the 2008 Farm Bill directing the USDA to issue implementing regulations under the PSA. And we won.  But the fight wasn't over. The big meatpackers managed to hamstring many of the proposed regulations. And now they want to completely eliminate the few protections we did get, leaving the meatpackers free to continue their abusive practices that hurt farmers.

 

Please help us stop these dangerous riders!  

 

Call both of your Senators today to urge them to  

vote YES on the Tester Amendments.  

It only takes a few minutes, and your activism does make a difference!

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit [EIN 20-8605130], defends the rights and broadens the freedoms of family farms and artisan food producers while protecting consumer access to raw milk and nutrient-dense foods. Learn more About Us.

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Web Addresses (urls) in this Edition

If you are unable to click on the titles to go to the website posting(s), you may either go to the top of this email to "Having trouble viewing this email? Click here"  or copy the following web address (url) and paste it in your browser: 

http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa-4december2012-gmo-rider.htm 

or http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/news_wp/?p=2985

 

Please forward this digest to others who are concerned about protecting locally-sourced nutrient dense foods and preserving sustainable small family farms and artisan food producers as well as defending the rights to sell and to access the foods of one's choice from the source of one's choice.