TSTA Weekly Update - April 17, 2014

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Weekly Update Editor

We hope you do not tire of keeping up with the latest in GMO news. We feel GMOs, and specifically how they are regulated, is a key indicator of what seed companies will be offering in the future and an important barometer of where we will spend our individual and collective development capital. We also strongly feel GMOs will be nothing less than crucial in feeding the planet henceforth.

Your TSTA staff had a luncheon meeting with the United Sorghum Checkoff staff this week and the conversation was lively and centered on two things. How do we make the average U.S., or Texan, consumer more comfortable and confident in the safety of their food supply and will Texas have sufficient water in the future to maintain its agricultural abundance?

All the active members of the Texas Ag Council sincerely desire to provide safe, abundant, and affordable food, feed, and fiber to Texas citizens and to the world. In many ways our luxury of worrying about our food safety indicates just how good we have things in this country. Two paths seem obvious: education and trust. In fact neither are easy.

Have you personally tried to educate someone that is far-removed from the farm and rural life about where their food comes from? Have you personally tried to explain to someone with no science background or education what a GMO is versus a hybrid, as opposed to an heirloom variety or an open-pollinated crop?

I have: and it turns out to be challenging. Love to hear from you if you disagree. Even better I'd love to hear how you accomplished it. To make matters more difficult it turns out most people who doubt the safety of GMOs already have a pretty strong opinion about it regardless of the facts. An established negative attitude rather makes the row-to-hoe a longer one.

Which brings us to "trust". In the absence of a demonstrated ability to persuasively explain the science and safety of our food supply I've tried variations of "if you don't understand it you will simply have to trust those of us who do understand it." Trust me on this one; that won't generally go well either.

Hence the dilemma. On one hand people believe what the activists (who get paid for what they do remember) and popular press tells them about food fearfulness yet they haven't a clue about why. In general people love to distrust and despise "big corporations" like several of our multinational association members and their wielding of unnatural influence due to power and money. Check out Whole Foods market capitalization: they are almost exactly the same size "big corporation" as Monsanto so that's not an intelligent assessment - no matter that.

More troublesome is the decreasing levels of public trust in the federal government including the FDA, USDA, and EPA, all charged with a part of the approval process of GMO traits. So the natural tendency among the knowledgeable, is to say something silly like "trust me 'cause I'm smart" and the public doesn't much care for that either - probably reminds them a bit too much of the federal government.

If you have ideas we are ready to take your call - anytime.

While we have plenty of ideas but no final solutions for Texas water and its continued availability we had some very good news yesterday. The Texas Seed Trade Association will be representing Texas agriculture on the H2O4Texas Policy Subcommittee for the implementation of the Texas State Water Plan. Our association was supportive and worked hard to pass Proposition 6 last November which allocated $2B to a revolving loan fund for water projects in Texas as an amendment to the Texas Constitution. The Texas Rural Water Association and the Texas Seed Trade Association are the two entities named to the Subcommittee to cover agricultural and rural water interests.