Last year's food riots in Haiti, India, Indonesia and elsewhere sounded the alarm bell for a painful level of global hunger that is only going to increase with a growing population and a changing climate. In a promising move, the G8 -- a group of the world's eight wealthiest nations -- has just announced a shift away from providing direct food aid to developing countries and towards helping farmers abroad produce and distribute their own food.

That's a laudable goal. But the Obama administration along with members of the U.S. Congress are using this singular moment to move their own agenda: propping up U.S. biotechnology companies like Monsanto. They hope to accomplish this by promoting genetically modified seeds and chemical inputs as tools to fight hunger through an exclusive focus on increasing crop yields. One powerful Senate committee has already passed a bill, sponsored by Senators Casey (D-PA) and Lugar (R-IN), that requires GMO technology to be part of the U.S. agricultural research agenda abroad. We need to tell them not to use our tax dollars to market Monsanto's products abroad!

Despite all the hype, GMOs have simply failed to deliver: there is no evidence that exporting this technology to the developing world will actually boost productivity. A recent analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that GMOs have had almost no impact on crop yields in the United States. Further, GMOs have little to offer drought-prone regions like Africa. Simply put: there are no drought-tolerant GMOs currently on the market. The only two GMO seed traits available -- sold by the biotechnology giants Monsanto and Bayer CropScience -- are herbicide tolerance and pest resistance for a handful of commodity crops like corn, soy and cotton. And not only are the existing seeds expensive but the use of these seeds would also tether poor farmers to the synthetic pesticides and fertilizers GMOs require.

Dedicating millions of dollars in aid money to biotechnology companies also reduces the funding available for proven agro-ecological systems and infrastructure improvements that are more appropriate for small and limited-resource producers.

Sign the petition at
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/casey_lugar_gmo//?r=4177&id=4894-1605197-co1kr1x

Sorry, this petition is closed.
The other links to info are still good here however and special thanks to Sharla Stone below who has provided a link to senators.
I suggest copy-pasting some info from the above and/or from the info you find by taking the links and/or from the petition text here and/or writing your own.
Thanks

  PETITION TEXT:

"Changing the focus of US international development policy from direct food aid to agricultural investment in the developing world is a laudable goal. But declarations by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack that biotechnology and GMOs are the answer are misguided and ill-informed. As a recent World Bank/UN report recently concluded, GMOs are unsuited to the developing world. We urge you to oppose Casey-Lugar and any bill that contains earmarks for, investment requirements in or promotion of GMOs abroad."

WITH COMMENT BOX BELOW

FOR MORE INFO PLEASE SEE:
http://food.change.org/actions/view/why_the_lugar-casey_global_food_security_act_will_fail_to_curb_hunger