News

AC21 to present recommendations

Challenged to develop recommendations to strengthen coexistence between different agricultural production methods, the USDA Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21) finalized their recommendations last week and will present them to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack as early as this week.

“The recommendations are that the USDA needs to get more involved in the stewardship, education and incentive programs for farmers to talk about coexistence,” said Alan Kemper of Indiana, Chairman of the American Soybean Association (ASA) and member of the AC21 committee. “If USDA collects data that actually shows compensation is needed, then they should use a crop insurance model.”

Kemper tells Brownfield one of the challenges the AC21 committee faced was the overall lack of good data.

“We did not see anything that showed GE was harming any organics, so if you have data fine, if not, then you shouldn’t go forward with the program,” Kemper said.

Audio: Alan Kemper, AC21 Committee (3:50 mp3)

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!