FARMER PROTECTION ACT UPDATE
The Farmer Protection Act is still alive at the end of this legislative session! The senate bill (s.18) finally passed out of the House Agriculture Committee earlier this week, with an amendment that weakened the bill. That bill was then referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where several hours of testimony were taken on the bill. In the end, the House Judiciary Committee passed a further amended version of S.18 out of the committee on Friday, placing it on the "notice" calendar for the last day of session on Saturday. The House Judiciary Committee's amended version of the bill took out the strong liability protections for Vermont farmers with regard to GMOs - in fact, the committee actually had to rename the bill because it no longer addresses this core issue for Vermont farmers. The committee's version does give Vermont farmers some strong consumer protections, but it does not address the very real issue of liability risk being forced on farmers for GMOs. In the end, the House ran out of time before a vote could be taken on this bill. However, they will be back soon, as the governor is planning to veto the budget, and then S.18 will be up for a vote. The very good news is that the lead sponsor of the bill, Dexter Randall, is ready with a "floor amendment" to put the strong liability protections back into the bill, and there is growing support for this amendment. WE WILL NEED YOUR HELP VERY SOON with this - please stay tuned! We are absolutely still in the game, and we will need to let our legislators know that we have not given up!
sing facility to be enrolled in current use, on a farm on which the land is already enrolled.

Please stay tuned for further updates on the Farmer Protection Act! We will NEED YOUR ACTION to make sure we get the strong liability protections we want for all Vermont farmers!....

posted: 06/06/2005 10:54:06