Are you passionate about GMO labeling legislation?

 







A message from Bill Duesing:

Dear Friends,

I hope you are well and enjoying the holidays with family.

You may have heard that Rep. Roy is planning to introduce legislation to require the labeling of foods containing Genetically Modified Organisms in the next session.  He has bipartisan support.

This seems like something that you would be interested in and support. 

CT NOFA is supporting this effort, as is so far, The Ledgelight  Health district and the United Church of Christ. The CT League of Conservation Voters will support it as soon as we have a bill to show them.

Most polls (for over a decade or more) have shown that the vast majority of people in this country also support labeling of foods containing GMOs.

This could be very helpful to the local food movement in Connecticut, since almost all local food (except meat and dairy products) doesn't involve GMOs.  The coming of GMO sweet corn next year opens up a big can of worms.

It might also have a beneficial health outcome since many junk foods contain GMOs, while fruits and vegetables, whole grains and legumes don't.  

If successful this will be another in a long line of Connecticut's significant environmental firsts.  There is an Initiative in California to do this too.

We are having a meeting in Hartford this Friday, at 10 in the LOB.  Bob Burns, who is a leader in this effort, says that Rep. Roy is arranging a room.  Senator Maynard has committed to coming. Tom Reynolds will be there.  Diana Urban supports this and may be there.  Edith Prague is 100% behind this effort but is recovering from surgery.

It would be great if you could be at this meeting. Check with Rep. Roy's office rm.3201for exact location of the meeting.

If you can't attend, let us know if you are interested in supporting, or if you have any questions.

I'll paste the language for the California initiative below, as well as some questions about how it treats GMO feed, although I need to spend some more time with the complicated language there to really understand what it means.

It would be wonderful to work with you on this.  

Best wishes for 2012.

Bill

Here's a link to the California Initiative language.