Farmers grow a lot of things, but money isn’t one of them. Yet some people seem to think “cash crop” is a literal description rather than a figurative expression, judging from the subject of last week’s meeting of AC21–the acronym for the USDA’s Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture. I addressed the panel during a public session, leaving my farm for a day to do it. Our country is going broke faster than a roadrunner on hot asphalt. That hasn’t stopped certain sectors of the organic-food industry from demanding special compensation for when trace amounts of biotech ingredients show up in organic fields, suggesting that this poses a serious economic hazard. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has asked AC21 to study the dispute and propose a solution.
View the original article here: Fifth generation farmer defends biotechnology
