Per the Fallon Forum Fan page on Facebook, “The Fallon Forum Dennis Kucinich joins us tonight! Important topic: herbicide-resistant weeds and how to best control bio tech crops.”

Introductions and welcome.

EF: We're talking better regulation of bio tech crops. I understand weeds are developing resistance to bio tech crops.

DK: I believe weeds have developed due to a lack of oversight of genetically modified organisms.

LF: Will your hearings help farmers who don't want GMO crops in their fields.

DK: It is difficult for farmers to make that decision right now. Farmers may have the intention to grow non-GMO crops, but if a neighbor has GMO, then the genes could drift. The other issue is can farmers harvest their seed? Farmers are subject to lawsuits if their seeds have been subject to contamination by GMO drift.

EF: Farmers are getting sued.

DK: I have been working on this for ten years. The lawsuits got my attention.

EF: Large chemical companies have gotten into the seed industry and are producing seeds that need their chemicals. It seems there is a circular pattern where farmers become reliant on large chemical companies.

DK: The economics of farming are changing and the power is going into the hands of the people who have the seeds and it is changing the nature of farming. If we are what we eat, it would be wise for us to know what we are eating is made of so we can know what we will become.

Farmers are getting hit from many sides. Now they have to worry about agriculture being hijacked by the bio tech companies.

LF: Another issue is global roll out of bio tech seeds.

DK: Yes, and there is some international litigation going on. Agriculture itself is being transformed into a monopoly system.

EF: According to Des Moines Register DK said the USDA is too quick to approve GMOs.

DK: The culture in the USDA is basically a rubber stamp of the corporate bio tech agenda. This is not a criticism of Secretary Vilsack. My subcommittee will further investigate the relationships between the USDA and bio tech companies.

EF: What you are doing is very important.

DK: We are asking questions that haven't been asked. Cited the precautionary principle regarding the food that sustains life. People assume the questions have been ask and answered, but they have not.

There is another question here. Show me that GMOs are safe. Show me that the functional aspect of the bio tech foods are the same as conventional foods.