At their meeting last Saturday, the Scott County Farm Bureau Board of Directors voted to oppose the Grain Belt Express Clean Line HVDC transmission line.

The Board cited it will help its members in efforts to keep the merchant line project from getting utility status and eminent domain authority in Illinois.

  

Farm Bureau members are encouraged to send messages to their members of Congress in support of H.R. 1599, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act. The bill leverages federal authority on labeling and food safety, steering clear of the confusing state-by-state approach favored by opponents of GMOs. Since labels concerning GMOs are not about health or safety, but rather marketing, H.R. 1599 would create voluntary labeling standards implemented by the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Marketing Service, the same agency that administers USDA's Organic Program.

 

AFBF Action Alert

 

Biotech Grassroots Toolkit 

While the Environmental Protection Agency continues to court America's farmers to support the proposed Waters of the U.S. rule, the messages of the agency's charm offensive could actually be telegraphing a regulatory nightmare for many farmers across wide swaths of prime farm and ranch country, AFBF President Bob Stallman wrote in a Special Edition Focus on Agriculture column. "Based on messages recently delivered by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, coupled with language in the proposed WOTUS rule, the EPA appears ready to make prairie potholes a categorical 'water of the United States,'" Stallman wrote. This would subject owners of prairie potholes to an unnecessary, punishing and patently duplicative blanket of bureaucracy.