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ARTICLE: Idaho FFA speech winner will speak at Nampa Ag Forum

The following is an excerpt of an article from the Capital Press highlighting the winner of a Future Farmers of America speech content that discusses the benefits of GMOs to farmers. 

 A Meridian High School FFA member won a prepared speech contest with a presentation about how genetically modified crops can help Idaho farmers continue to feed the world despite the continuing loss of farmland.

Ashton Shaul, a senior, memorized her entire 8-minute presentation and was the only one of the six competitors not to use notes.

She has been invited to repeat her presentation Feb. 6 during the Nampa Chamber of Commerce’s 5th Annual Ag Forum, which will feature a panel discussion about the steady disappearance of farmland in southwestern Idaho.

A catalyst for this year’s Ag Forum theme was a recent Boise State University study that projected rapid development growth in the Treasure Valley of southwestern Idaho would result in the loss of between 110,000 and 240,000 acres of farmland by the year 2100.

Some groups have started thinking of ways to help stem the loss of farmland in Idaho through the use of such methods as a voluntary statewide farmland easement program.

But Shaul argued that the use of genetically modified crops, known as GMOs, was the best way to help Idaho farmers produce more food on less land.

To read the entire article, please visit the Capital Press website