artificially materiel into something that would not normally accepted that so this is in jackson county should now the g m o's in fact are here in the valley and they have a negative impact on  important part of our economy they also are being grown by foreign companies who don't have a deep investment in the valley they export their product of the farming industry in jackson county is an eighty million dollar industry that industry fifteen million dollars already fourteen million dollars is direct sales to consumers in the form of roadside stands for market and also the mode of production here for food is organic conventional using organic methods and the reason that is as consumers here demand it restaurants demand it well i know the gym of those are bad for the farming community and the farming community basically feeding the hungry they're growing in order to sell more pesticides so these are companies that make these g m their chemical companies so they're growing seeds to grow plants that resist the chemical that you're going to have to spray on the farm the long term  have to spray more and more you know a lot of these things are very water soluble they spray it rains boom it's in the water flow off from the field if you grow side by side or your distances aren't big enough you as an organic organic farmer asked about bear the whole cost of coexistence if you're a g m o grower you don't have to do anything you grow it has no impact on your market if you're an organic form or you have to bear the cost mostly farmers are good neighbors you know they do the right thing that's why they're farmers they want to do the right thing you get corporate mixed in there corporations are not my neighbor syngenta is from switzerland which doesn't allow them to grow their seed in their own country to moser not grown in switzerland why not why come all the way to oregon to grow your seed seeds are very specific to or can specifically to a geographic geographic area right now corn is the big one corn so we sure beats when you buy g m o corn you can't see the corn seed it's in a contract that you can buy it there have been test  court cases where soybean growers have had accident paul and contamination on their crops they saved it and the monsanto came in confiscated their crop because it had the g m o in that crop unbeknownst to the farmer it's a fundamental right of a farmer to save his seed and to plant the seed that you grow you can grow seed and it'll come back just like its parent it's got g m o in it as an organic farmer i can't sell it organic seed viable there's a law that says no jim owes in organics period hello welcome to on the media we're coming to you live on this do you of rogue valley television digital media center here on march seventh two thousand and fourteen i'm jason how come the host of the show and i'm also the publisher of the rogue valley community it's our local community newspaper dedicated to social justice and when you shoot that we've been covering for will go well over a year now is a an issue of growing concern in our community and that has been the threat of genetically engineered crops in our community and if and when the threat was first introduced we first found out about it and we're very alarmed and and certainly as the community became aware and mobilized we found that a very strong coalition of organic farmers community members and concerned citizens have gotten together to combat this this threat so today i'm really excited to have a couple of guests that are going to talk about this issue and certainly very informed guess we have in the studio today we have elise higley in you're the director of our family farms coalition you're also a farmer here in the road valley and chris hardy you are also a local farmer and you work on the g m o free jackson county and you've been very instrumental in bringing attention to the to the threat in the river valley and and so maybe if we could step back a little bit and so so that's why the rogue valley why would companies like monsanto or or syngenta want to grow grow crops here in the first place well first off we have a world class growing region here for seed production so why many of our farmers in the region are growing seeds is the same reaching reason why why we have chemical corporation is here with their technology producing seeds for their markets which are are for export out of jackson county so that's why they're here that's why our farmers are also producing seeds because the climate is is is perfect is just right to to see these crops to their final maturity in a good quality so that's that's where farmers are are doing this and that's why they're probably doing that as well i think one thing to look at is other counties that have passed this type of measure you can look at statistics with moran county and they're agricultural sales doubled in the last ten years it's been passed and food costs are not the way we're growing food now we're not growing a genetically engineered food here in the valley so that's not going to change our food cost the only thing that's going to make it make a difference is that we're have there's going to be more farmers it's going to be more desirable place to be and will have even more of an abundance of food supply we need support we need support many wires out how to help many would be great for the campaign you always need that and then we just need supporters on our list we need people to do presentations they want to do house parties to educate their friends and family there's organizations or their businesses they want to have a presentation at there's a whole team of presenters that are just ready to go out there and educate people on this so this is a real grass roots movement is not about how much money we're going to raise her campaign materials we know that that the posing side is going to be doing that so we need to educate people about really the truth behind it so when they do get their campaign out that they know the truth to lead it g m o free life eat whole foods cook them at home make food from scratch buy organic and try to source as much of your food as you can from local organic farms since there's no labeling law in the united states it's all voluntary and the non g m o project is the one that has spearheaded this so manufacture voluntarily take on the cost of testing their products to make sure that they are free of any g m o those and then they earn the right to put the non g m o project label on their product so besides looking for organic food you want to look for those items that bear the non g m o project label over the next decade or so to see the organic forms here's the stainless forms here go by the wayside as are basically drag the g m o type of agriculture so if we no longer have access to organic farms in southern oregon northern california and we no longer have access to north american organic foods then we're going to have to source organic food from outside of the country human right of a farmer and a consumer because if we don't stop it but everyone will be eating g most everyone your children well beyond shama it's just the way it's going to be we don't stop it it will contaminate the whole place the world the world the