Hi everyone, Frank N. Foode™ here bringing you the results of the first Biofortified Community Contest!
Both Pdiff and MaryM were nominated in the comments of the contest announcement,and it was a tough choice. Both have been providing superb input and support in comments and in the forum. So who won?
The winner of Community Contest #1 goes to a person who has been helping out for a long time (in corn years) with providing links, digging up sources, and helping to populate our list of GE companies, for example. They helped dig up an obscure article that undermined a persistent myth about soy allergies and GE crops, all while being friendly and funny. And that person is none other than MaryM!
So congratulations Mary, your very own Biofortified Schwag Bag will be on its way for you to fill with groceries, carry your lunch in, or hold while snoopy dancing! Give her a round of applause!
Community Contest #2
With contest #1 now over, it is time to announce the beginning of contest #2. This will be the same as contest #1, but with a twist. One of the things that we want to see here is healthy disagreement. C’mon, you don’t have to be a genetically modified organism to know that some of the things we talk about on Biofortified can lead to some heated arguments. Words flying everywhere, food rights breaking out in local cafeterias, crops getting ripped out of the ground – almost anything can happen. So there may be some disagreement about what are the best seeds to plant, I think we can all cultivate our ideas together. So the twist to our second comment contest is, you need to nominate a comment that you disagree with.
Here are the rules for contest #2:
- Anyone can nominate someone for this contest, but must link to at least one comment (can be several) by that author.
- Editors (and me) are ineligible for the contest – but contributing authors can get in on the action.
- You must nominate someone that you disagree with. Tell us why you disagree with them, but also why you believe that the comment(s) they made deserve(s) notice. Did they point out something you didn’t think of, or state their case in a logical, civil, and productive way? Did they change your mind about something, or give you some new ideas?
- Comments can be from any date in the past, present, or future. They can be comments on posts or in the forum.
- In order to accept the award, comment author must be registered, fill out at least some of their profile, and have a picture uploaded for their avatar. (Profile can be done after the winner is announced. Picture need not be a human photo – how about a cool plant?)
- The winner(s) will be judged on how awesomely smart, cool, funny, and productive their comments are. We want to reward people that help elevate the discussion and give them a special status in the community.
- Nominations will close on Wednesday October 27th at midnight Pacific Standard Time. (End of the day, not the beginning!)
- Winner(s) will be decided by Biofortified’s editors, and will be announced on the 29th of October.
The winner will receive their very own Biofortified canvas tote bag!
It comes complete with an embroidered shopping list pocket with an elastic pen loop so you can check things off as you shop. (Note: Veggies, shopping list, pen, and Frank not included.)
Nominate your entries in the comments below. (Due to the fact that multiple links can get your comment caught up in our voluminous spam queue, we recommend making nominations while logged in.) If you have been nominated, filling out your profile right away will help your chances of winning. And you can also second nominations and root for those whom you think really deserve to win! Good Luck, and remember it’s not too late to make a winning comment!
Awww…sniff, sniff…I’m so touched…!
Actually, I am delighted. I use canvas bags all the time. And I’m a vegetarian: I’ll fill that baby up right!
That’s really nice looking. And I’d LOVE to have conversations with people at the local farmer’s market about the logo 🙂 I love to chat up this stuff. My outreach is not limited to the intertubz.
Congrats, Mary! Thank you for your contributions to the discussion and for all the interesting articles you manage to turn up!
I have a nominee for Contest # 2. I’d like to nominate Bernarda. This person is a fairly new commenter to Biofortified, but has contributed greatly to conversation by bringing new perspectives and presenting them in a non-argumentative way. I feel that a lot of times we all just talk past people we disagree with, which is frustrating and unfruitful. But with Bernarda, particularly on the Miracle Plants: Fallacy or New Frontier post, I think we’re not talking past each other any more but actually having some real discussion. This is thanks very much in part to Ewan for also presenting his arguments in a non-argumentative way. If we can keep this sort of useful conversation going, we can all learn something.
Entirely by accident I assure you!
It arrived today! It’s a terrific bag. I actually found it on my way out the door to the farm stand, so of course I brought it along. Here we are (me, the bag, and many local plant products)

I am also now the proud owner of a variety of gourds, squashes, apple cider, and 2 pies. Er, technically 1.5 pies now. Fall in New England is teh best….
Thanks for the nomination and the award my fortified friends!
Oh, the image doesn’t show, and I can’t edit…I could see it in preview. Karl or Anastasia–can you look and see if you can get it to show?
I would suggest uploading it to your profile and link to it, or if it is hosted elsewhere, just put the link in the comment – I couldn’t see anything in the comment text. I can edit it into your comment and see if it works.
Oh, odd, I had some img code in there with this link–that whole thing must have vaporized. Here’s the link:
http://blog.openhelix.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/biofortified3.jpg
done!
What a great photo! It looks like fall in NE really is awesome 🙂
Hmm… pie…