Farmer Educates Consumers About GMOs

By Susan Winsor

   Setting the record straight, from a farmer's perspective, is all in a day's work for Claremont, MN, farmer Mike Petefish.

   When a group of anti-GMO activists confronted some corn farmers at a convention, he calmly approached them to present the scientific facts on GMOs. It comes naturally to him, given his personality and education. With degrees in plant genetics and agronomy, "I have science on my side," he says. But Petefish was surprised that day how ill informed some of his fellow farmers were. Several farmers asked the activists, "What is a GMO?" and upon hearing their reply said, "Well, that doesn't sound too safe."

"I just talk to people about the truth of the matter, from my perspective."   Photo: Susan Winsor

   "Food safety and GMOs are one of the biggest issues facing our industry, so I see this as a good investment of time when someone bashes my occupation and my lifestyle," Petefish says.

   The 29-year-old farmer has an undergraduate degree in Plant Breeding and Plant Biology and a Master's in Agronomy. "I just talk to people about the truth of the matter, from my perspective," he says.

   It's uncommon for a young person to step forward that eagerly, says Petefish's neighbor, farmer/volunteer Bruce Schmoll, who described a similar, exchange that he observed: "At a recent volunteer food-shelf event in Minneapolis, a volunteer said that the food shelf shouldn't include GMO-containing foods. Her feet were pretty dug in on the issue. Mike explained that he's a fifth-generation farmer, and cited examples of beneficial GMO-related materials like insulin and organic farmers' approved use of Bt as a biopesticide."

Read more here. For the other side of the coin, take a look at this post in Barn Talk.

On November 20, Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order establishing the Commonwealth Council on Bridging the Nutritional Divide. The council's purpose is to help solve childhood hunger in Virginia, promote state's agricultural economy, and support local programs related to community nutrition, food access, and health strategies. 

The second of the Council's three major objectives reads thus:

"To promote Virginia's leading industry - agriculture - and increase access to affordable, healthy, and local foods:

 -- Improve food distribution systems to better serve a diversifying Virginia agricultural economy

 -- Improve accessibility to farmers' markets

�-- Increase acceptance of SNAP/Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) and WIC/EBT at farmers' markets

 -- Encourage the development of innovative and sustainable retail models to provide access to healthy foods in areas classified as food deserts

 -- Increase farm-to-school and other farm-to-institution programs"

The Order will remain in effect until January 12, 2018.