“I’m just a rock ‘n’ roller who believes people should know what they’re eating,” Young said at a backstage pre-show press conference with Gov. Peter Shumlin. Then he upped the ante.
“We would like to see some of the high-rollers in Vermont who believe in this come up and match that, ’cause if you’ve got it, break it out,” Young said. “Remember, this is a big, multinational group of corporations working together to make sure you don’t know what you have on your food table.”
Young is on tour promoting his latest album, The Monsanto Years, which is one long musical slap at the pro-GMO seed manufacturer. In one song, which he played Sunday night, he sings — not all that elegantly — about Vermont’s first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law:
“When the people of Vermont
Voted to label food with GMOs
So that they could find out what was in
What the farmer grows
Monsanto and Starbucks
Through the Grocery/Manufacturers Alliance
Sued the state of Vermont
To overturn the people’s will.”
Young’s interest in Vermont’s law worked out pretty well for Shumlin, who got to watch Young’s sound check from backstage and planned to come back for the show.
“He called me out of the blue about 10 days ago and said, ‘I’m coming to Vermont. I want to help you raise money for the Vermont food fight,’” Shumlin said at the press conference.
Young’s call might have been unexpected, but several supporters of GMO labeling said they and the Shumlin administration had been actively trying to work out some sort of connection with Young while he was in Vermont for Sunday’s sold-out show at the Champlain Valley fairgrounds.
Sen. David Zuckerman (P/D-Chittenden) and Falko Schilling of Vermont Public Interest Group, who were both active in passing the GMO law, attended the press conference.
Young’s money is a big boost to the $450,000 Vermont had collected already in donations to help with what could be a multimillion-dollar court battle. The state’s law seeks to require labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms, starting next July.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents some of the largest food producers, has sued the state, arguing there’s no fundamental difference between foods with or without GMOs.
Young sought to refute that argument. He brought to the news conference scientist Shiva Ayyadurai to talk about his research on GMOs. Ayyadurai said the results call into question the notion that GMOs are equivalent to conventional counterparts.
Young, who took no questions at the news conference, also never mentioned his other recent Vermont political interest: presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Young last month threw his support behind Sanders and gave him permission to use Young’s classic song “Rockin’ in the Free World” after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump used it without permission. Sanders was campaigning in Texas on Sunday.
On stage Sunday night, Young never sang “Rockin’ in the Free World.” But the 69-year-old played non-stop for nearly two and a half hours, mostly delivering non-Monsanto Neil Young classics.
He opened with show with “After the Gold Rush,” a song he wrote 45 years ago that seemed to still fit with the anti-Monsanto theme.
“Look at Mother Nature on the run, in the 21st century,” he sang, altering a lyric that had originally been, “Look at Mother Nature on the run, in the 1970s.”
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What an Icon… I wouldn’t have missed it.
If only that 100k could actually go towards a worthy cause like addressing global climate change, providing homeless shelters or feeding starving people in the third world instead of this pseudoscientific quackery that is the anti GMO movement.
How can anyone say GMO’s are not a worthy cause to support? You’re eating chemically modified foods and local farm’s are going under and being bought up my the man who is OWNING everything you eat.. which means they own YOU. The causes you mention are also worthy but you lose credibility when you make statements like the one you did.
@ Baker: please identify a “local farm’s” (sic) that was bought by the man, and identify “the man,” please. Do you think before you repeat the shit you saw on a bumper sticker?
Who owns our seeds? Who Owns the color yellow? Who owns a rose? This is what it is at the heart of the GMO debate. When the bees are all gone, and when the only seed that grows is Monsantos altered seed, you’ll be singing a different tune. And it won’t be very pretty. Follow the money. What is the problem with labeling if it is the same food? A Supreme court justice who use to be a Monsanta lobbyist, weighing in on the constitutionality of trademark and patent infringement for GMO and siding his former employer? Are you kidding me? This country is turning into a joke! Wake up!
“Who owns our seeds?” The person who grew or bought the plant that’s producing the seeds. That’s who. You want the seeds from the heirloom or hybrid plant that I worked hard to grow? Buy ’em and stop whining. Even organic seeds are owned and sold by someone. Even heirloom seeds are owned by someone. Ask Vermont organic seed seller High Mowing Seeds if you can have their seeds for free, and tell me what happens.
“Who owns the color yellow?” What are you talking about? Nobody’s claiming to own the entire color yellow in all its forms and in all contexts. But are you saying that the government doesn’t have the exclusive right to use a certain shade of yellow on school buses? Are you saying that the Red Cross doesn’t have trademark rights in its name and symbol?
“Who owns a rose?” The person who grew it, or bought it from the florist.
You’re using vague rhetoric to make some unclear point.
On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries. SEE http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111629
Hard to take him seriously when he is only alive because of his daily GMO insulin. Why not let nature take its course?
GMO debate aside, I get really pissed when a public figure, like an artist, athlete, movie star, etc. uses their fame to make political statements. Stick to your real skills., but please, don’t split your fan base by engaging in a political stand. I think Young’s music is awesome, I could care less about his views, whether I agree with him — or not.
Who owns John Lennon’s image?
Ha ha, yes Peg Tassey! Yoko.
Most reasonable people accept that the Earth is round, that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, that evolution is by far the only reasonable explanation for how we, as a species, came to be. They go to their doctors who treat them with drugs and vaccines that have been proven to work over long periods of trials. They go to work or the store in automobiles that have been designed to be safer and more efficient than ever before. And on and on it goes. Why? Because science has proven these things time and time again.
Yet for some strange reason and against all the science, some otherwise reasonable people don’t trust GMOs which have *never* been shown to be dangerous in any manner. Oh, sure, you have crackpots and the notoriously vapid Food Babe pushing against GMOs as they pad their bottom lines on the crap they sell to believers, but they are not scientists, they don’t do research (except for Google University) and they completely steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the actual science while dismissively hand-waving GMO supporters away as “corporate shills.”
This legislation is little more than a play by anti-GMO fear-mongerers, people who refuse to acknowledge not only the science, but the fact that GM technology offers products that are cheaper, more productive, and more eco-friendly. That means more people get fed for less money. These are people of privilege trying to scare the poors into adopting their own eating habits. This law is unnecessary, meaningless, and a very very expensive and worthless use of good money that could help people who don’t have enough food to eat or clothes to wear or wood to burn over the long Vermont winters. Why would any reasonable person want to participate in that?
@ Touchline
Ditto. Especially the part about food elitists (who already know which foods contain GMOs and who can afford to pay exorbitant sums for their designer foods) trying to dictate to poor people what they should and should not eat without offering those same poor people any help with their food bills. It’s the ultimate in let-them-eat-cake politics — if they can afford it. And if they can’t, who cares.
@ Touchline,”Yet for some strange reason and against all the science, some otherwise reasonable people don’t trust GMOs which have *never* been shown to be dangerous in any manner.” There is NO strange reason(its called facts),and it is not against “all the science” (its against industry driven self serving science),reasonable people don’t trust GMOs which *HAVE* been proven to be dangerous. Btw who designated you as the voice of reason?Let me set you straight,I am far from a person of privilege,and if I can convince “the poors” as you call us,that the cheap,bio-cide GMO phood,they feed their families might be detrimental to the health and well being of their children deserves a label so they can make a choice,I will! Label GMOs,let transparency prevail,consumer choice is democracy.
Goodthymes, please identify any scientifically valid studies that have “proven” GMOs to be dangerous.