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The Community is Rallying around GMO legislation

All across our small Southern Oregon county ballots are arriving in mailboxes which hold  a proposed measure to ban the growing of GMO Crops within the county.   There has been a massive effort by a local group called Our Family Farms Coalition (http://www.ourfamilyfarmscoalition.org/) to educate voters regarding the importance protect the 100’s of farms in Jackson County that grow non-GMO seed from being cross pollinated with GMO seed, thereby making it unsellable and comprising their livihoods.   Its turned into quite a battle with the opposition now pouring over one million dollars into the campaign (much of which has come from chemical corporations such as Du Pont and Syngenta/Monsanto).

Today friends from our local farming community and the greater community of farmers in the Rogue Valley converged on downtown Medford with 17 tractors and dozens of impassioned supporters.  In the spirit of rural mutuality I drove our big Ford truck to pick up my friend Ben’s tractor, which we loaded onto our mutual friend Roarke’s trailer.

The brigade of tractors cruisin down the boulevard in downtown Medford being met with cheers and honks.

The brigade of tractors cruisin down the boulevard in downtown Medford being met with cheers and honks.

I love how creative and wholeheartedly dedicated to ecological justice our broader community is.  The corporations may have bottomless pockets of cash but they don’t got the grassroots like we do!

Till next time,

Ryan