A Grassroots Battle Over Biotech Farming
By Robert Mullins, NewsDesk.org
Local initiatives target genetic engineering
When
voters in the Northern California county of Mendocino passed an
initiative this spring banning the cultivation of genetically
engineered crops, there were celebrations 3,000 miles away in Vermont.
That
same day, March 2, nine town councils in Vermont passed resolutions
calling for a state moratorium on genetically engineered farming,
bringing to 79 the number of townships there that have taken such a
stand.
“We were
thrilled in Vermont after the Mendocino County vote passed the same day
as our town vote. This is a huge boost for our campaign,” said Amy
Shollenberger, an organizer of GE-Free Vermont, an advocacy group
opposed to genetically engineered crops.
On the
heels of these successes, and buoyed by widespread disapproval of
genetically modified foods in Europe, municipalities around the U.S.
are presenting their own versions of the ban to voters this November.
But
activists may be trying to close the barn door after the horses have
already fled. Many food crops worldwide are already being grown with
genetically modified seed, and the agribusiness lobby, perhaps caught
off guard by the Mendocino vote, is refocusing its well-funded lobbying
machine.
Grassroots battle
In
genetically modified or genetically engineered agriculture, seeds from
crops like corn, soybean and cotton are designed to have traits such as
resistance to pesticides, herbicides or spoilage.
Opponents
say GM plants contaminate organic crops, pose potential health risks to
consumers and will enable agribusiness to plow over the family farm.
Worldwide,
seven million farmers in 18 countries plant GM seeds. According to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, 45 percent of the corn planted in the
U.S. in 2004 was GMO, along with 76 percent of upland cotton and 85
percent of all soybeans.
Failing to win federal legislation, the U.S. anti-GM lobby has settled for state- and county-level campaigns.
Inspired
by the success of the ban in Mendocino, activists in four other
California counties — Butte, Humboldt, Marin and San Luis Obispo —
are putting similar initiatives before their voters Nov. 2.
An anti-GM campaign also is building in Hawaii, where GM papaya has been planted since 1998.
North
Dakota advocates planned to put a referendum before voters in November
to ban growth of genetically modified hard red winter wheat in their
state, but withdrew the proposal when Monsanto, the St. Louis-based
agribusiness giant, canceled plans to test the wheat in the state.
“We
think these are isolated incidents,” said Michelle Gorman, director of
regulatory relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation in
Washington, D.C.
Corporations
dismiss anti-GM groups as a small number of zealots, and say
genetically modified farming is more efficient than organic because
fewer crops are lost to weeds and pests. This, they say, will expand
export markets and feed more people worldwide.
The Bush
administration, a supporter of the biotech industry, is promoting GM
exports to African countries, arguing that the technology can produce
more food to fight famine there.
“Fear-making tactics”
On
its Web site, CropLife America, an agribusiness trade group, described
the ban in Mendocino County as “a direct reflection of the fear making
tactics used by [advocates] to frighten voters into rejecting this
technology.”
In
August, the American Farm Bureau Federation's president, Bob Stallman,
told a group of farmers in Butte County that “[l]ocal biotech bans
threaten agricultural production one county at a time.”
But Shollenberger in Vermont says the anti-genetic engineering campaign wants to save the family farm and consumer health.
“They
try to say, ‘This is just a group of radicals,’ but we’re not a group
of radicals. This is a national farm movement,” she said.
The
Vermont township resolutions ask state lawmakers to pass a moratorium
on GM farming until public health questions can be answered.
The
anti-GM lobby also supports mandatory labeling of food products made
with genetically modified organisms, and protection from liability for
farmers if their GM crops sicken consumers.
In an
online essay, Jeffrey Smith, a noted anti-GM activist, wrote that
people who eat modified foods may be at risk for allergic reactions and
“gene transfers” that might have unpredictable long-term results.
“Safety
studies conducted by the biotech industry are often dismissed by
critics as superficial,” he wrote, adding that while the Food and Drug
Administration has approved GM foods, some dissenting FDA scientists
have called for more long term studies.
The
Western Organization of Resource Councils, representing farmers in
Montana and other plains states, also called in late September for
further investigation of the impact on consumers of modified crops.
“There
is no independent safety testing done on these crops before they are
put on the market,” said Wayne Fisher, a wheat farmer from Dickinson,
N.D. “The result is we have almost no science to tell us if [GM] crops
are safe or not.”
Agribusinesses
counter that the biotech farming industry is heavily regulated by the
FDA, the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection
Agency.
Seed patents
Opponents are also concerned about the contamination of non-GM crops.
An EPA
study released in September showed that pollen from genetically altered
bentgrass drifted as far as 13 miles from test fields in Oregon.
Besides
contaminating non-biotech crops — which means they can’t be marketed
as “GM-free” and may carry the same health risks as modified crops —
the cross-pollination also makes farmers liable for violating seed
makers’ patents.
In May,
the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Saskatchewan farmer Percy
Schmeiser violated Monsanto’s patent for genetically modified canola
seed, which he said drifted over from a neighbor's fields.
In the U.S., farmers sued by seed growers have settled rather than fight the giant corporations, said Shollenberger.
Monsanto
uses forensic molecular biologists to identify its genetic material in
other crops, and has taken legal action against about 300 farmers for
violating its patents, according to the Online Learning Center Web
site.
“Periodically,
we are forced to do that,” said Monsanto spokeswoman Lori Fisher, but
did not provide further details on the lawsuits.
As seed
suppliers like Monsanto, Pioneer, DuPont and others “corner the
market,” Shollenberger said, non-GM farmers may have to buy genetically
altered seed whether they want to or not.
“It is
becoming increasingly difficult for farmers who grow certain crops to
get GM-free varieties,” she said. “Soybeans are the clearest example.
All across the U.S., farmers are choosing to plant GM soybeans because
they can't get conventional non-GM varieties.”
“Oblivious” to the debate
Local initiatives like Mendocino County’s seem unlikely to stop biotech’s momentum.
“I do
not think this is the start of a general backlash in the U.S.,” said
Fred Buttel, a rural sociologist at the College of Agricultural and
Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Most
Americans are “oblivious” to the debate, Buttel said, and are unaware
that about 75 percent of processed foods already have some GM content.
The
Mendocino County initiative passed because there is no GM-type farming
going on there anyway, and the initiative was only designed to keep it
out, he said.
“The
numbers of opponents are small, but they are well educated and skilled
and can have impacts on public policy,” Buttel said. “But these impacts
are unlikely to include more bans like that in Mendocino.”
Even some anti-GMO activists acknowledge their limitations.
Els
Cooperrider, organizer of the Mendocino campaign and co-owner of an
organic brewery and restaurant in Ukiah, said they ran their campaign
quietly so as to avoid drawing the attention of agribusiness lobbyists.
“We were very well organized. The industry didn't have time to organize,” she said.
Even
with a late start, however, the industry plowed an estimated $620,000
into TV ads and other efforts to defeat the Mendocino initiative.
The campaign was organized by CropLife America, whose representatives did not return calls seeking comment.
Spending only about $100,000, advocates of the ban prevailed with 57 percent of the vote.
But that may not ensure victory elsewhere, Cooperrider admits.
“We had the element of surprise,” she said. “It's gone now. The industry knows how we did it.”
Used with permission.
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