This is a good time to reflect on the last year and set goals for the New Year. I have considered the best way forward with GMO awareness and my activism and after a couple months of contemplation, especially since the defeat of California’s Prop 37, I have come to some realizations.

You see, at first, I was disheartened by the loss in California. I thought since California could not pass a labeling law, neither could an agricultural state like Idaho. And, truth be told, I was probably right. But, my vision of what is a win and what is a loss was blurred. I was assuming that a loss at the ballot box meant a loss for the cause. I was wrong.

In California, 48% of voters…an estimated 6 million Californians voted to pass GMO labeling this last November. Six million people stood up against GMOs together on the same day. That is amazing! That is a win, because two years ago, those same people may not have known GMOs existed nor had an opinion on the topic. More than that, Prop 37 spawned a national conversation and empowered people across the US to come together and continue the fight for what we know to be right; honest labeling of our food and a choice. Washington has collected 350,000 signatures to get labeling on their ballot this coming November. New Mexico and other states a introducing legislation to mandate labeling. Every time these bills are introduced, more people become aware and our cause grows.

I have met enough of our representatives in Idaho to know that many of them don’t know any more about GMOs than the average person in the grocery store. They simply do not know what we know, just as I did not know three years ago. What most of them do know about biotech, they learn from the lobbyists who fill the capitol or from the big businesses that hold so much power in Idaho politics. They don’t know the consumer concerns because, frankly, we have never told them.

Who do they hear from? Read More→