It’s time for farmers, suppliers and everyone else in biotech to switch gears away from battling mandatory labeling laws and to begin to focus on developing an open and transparent dialogue with consumers about the technology, a biotech industry leader said recently.

"It’s really time for us to change the conversation on GMOs (genetically modified organisms)," Cath­­leen Enright, executive vice president for food and agriculture at Biotech Industry Organization (BIO), the trade group of biotechnology companies. "We’ve really found that there are opportunities to talk to consumers about the technology, and we want to do that."

Speaking recently at a seminar at the 2014 American Farm Bureau Federation convention in San Antonio, Enright said her group recently launched a new website, called "GMO Answers", as a way to communicate...