-
Love Your Local Farmer and Planet: Testify Today!
If you are looking to love your planet on Valentine’s Day, please come to the hearing scheduled in Room 321 of the Roundhouse in Santa Fe at 3pm, TODAY, February 14th. The New Mexico Farmer Protection Act would provide legal armor to small farmers who are too-often attacked by metanational biotech/agriculture companies. The act:
1. Puts common-sense protections in place for small and independent farmers in New Mexico if encountered with suspected liability when they accidentally come into possession of patented, generically engineered seeds;
2. Establishes a process for biotech companies to enter a farmer’s property to check for the presence of their patented seeds, while protecting therights of the farmer;
3. States that no farmer in New Mexico has the duty to create buffer zones to protect his/her crops and land from genetic engineering encroachment; and
4. Says that the proper venue for any legal dispute between a New Mexico farmer who accidentally comes into possession of patented, genetically engineered seeds or crops, and the biotech corporation, is the district court in the New Mexico county where the dispute occurred – not in Missouri or some other state where the biotech company resides.
Please come support local farmers!
3 comments:
-
Today in Northern New Mexico small farmers struggle to make a living. They can grow far more than they can sell. Most markets are closed to their distribution. Large chains will not and cannot buy locally; yet, they all advertise 'local produce' and some even claim to be a 'farmer's market.' The consumer allows this to go on.
Great works have gained the public's eye: Omnivoure's Delima and Food Inc. are two that come to mind. It is clear that multinationals and 'Big Food' control the government much to detriment of the people. As the New Mexican Legislature tables the 'farmer protection act;' it is simply demonstrating that democracy and majority rule do not work in societies where the legislature can be bought. This again brings us to the consumer (and the voter) allowing it.
If each of us simply accept that ultimate responsibility lies with ourselves, and if we share this view with our neighbors - all the problems will be solved. As a first step we need to leave our 'gray' worlds, quit our silence, open our mouths and call a spade a spade. When something is clearly wrong do not 'justify' it.
Greg Nussbaum
-
Wow! Didn't know you were a farmer AND a poet, Greg! It's the agricultural industrial complex, but we CAN fight it, and someday (when enough of us care) we will win!
Citing its own ignorance, the committee voted to table SB 303 in front of a jam-packed hearing full of allies. Please let me know if you would like to become part of the newly formed Farmer Protection Coalition! A petition will soon be circuling, an immediate response group is in the works, etc.