Thanks to Paul Goettlich of the Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Committee for
posting this article on his website, Mindfully.org.
In Iowa, Gov. Vilsack, endorsed by Sierra Club in both 1998 and 2002,
strongly supported and signed into law this year a pre-emption bill of the type
discussed in this excellent article.
Tom
========================================
North Carolina Bills Take Local Control of Food Away
A Growing Stake in the Biotech Crops Debate
HOPE SHAND / Commentary / News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) 19may2005
CARRBORO -- Goodness grows in North Carolina? Not if the General Assembly
approves bills that would pre-empt local regulations on genetically modified
crops and trees. House Bill 671 and Senate Bill 631 aim to prevent towns, counties
or cities from passing any ordinance, regulation or resolution to control any
kind of plant or plant pest (including invasive plant species). The bills
would usurp local control by making the state Department of Agriculture the only
body in North Carolina with the authority to regulate plants.
These bills are not a homegrown initiative, but part of a nationwide biotech
industry campaign. Similar bills, containing identical language, have cropped
up in at least nine other states as part of a campaign by industry to prevent
citizen initiatives like those passed in three California counties last year
that prohibited cultivation of genetically modified crops.
Proponents of the seed pre-emption bills, including the Agriculture
Department, are championing the interests of corporate "gene giants" such as Monsanto
and Syngenta -- not citizens. Whether you're for or against genetically
modified seeds, the pre-emption bills represent an anti-democratic measure to take
control away from communities. Just as the corporate hog industry won
legislation to prohibit local jurisdictions from keeping out supersize hog farms in
North Carolina, now the gene giants are trying to muzzle debate by eliminating
options for local regulation of genetically modified crops.
The issue has immediate relevance in Eastern North Carolina, where Ventria
Bioscience has a permit to grow an open-air, experimental plot of rice
engineered with synthetic human genes (to produce artificial human milk proteins) near
the state Agriculture Department's Tidewater Research Station in Plymouth, in
Washington County. Two earlier attempts by Ventria to grow its genetically
modified "pharma rice" -- a crop that yields drugs for use in human and
veterinary medicines -- were opposed by farmers, food companies and environmentalists
in California and Missouri because of concerns that the genetically altered
pharma rice could cross-pollinate with conventional rice, thus contaminating the
food supply.
Last month, California-based Ventria Bioscience requested a permit from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture to grow up to 70 acres of pharma rice on two
additional plots in Eastern North Carolina. If the pre-emption bills pass,
communities would have no authority to regulate genetically modified crops.
Everyone agrees that unintended gene flow from genetically modified plants is
unavoidable. The organic food market is the fastest-growing segment of the
farm economy, but organic farmers risk losing organic certification, and
markets, if genetically modified DNA contaminates their fields. Local governments
should have the ability to protect growers who worry about contamination.
The biotech industry and federal regulators have repeatedly failed to contain
and control genetically modified organisms. The science journal Nature
revealed in March that Syngenta had inadvertently sold an unapproved strain of
genetically modified corn to farmers for four years. During that period, 146,000
tons of the corn were marketed as animal feed and corn flour in the U.S., in
Europe and in Asia. Syngenta informed federal authorities about the illegal corn
in late 2004, but the public and unsuspecting farmers were in the dark until
four months later. To keep out the unlicensed strain, the European Union
threatened to boycott U.S. corn imports valued at $347 million. As usual, farmers
were left holding the bag. Syngenta was let off with a fine.
This was not the first time genetically modified corn has entered the food
supply. In 2000, Starlink corn, approved only for use as animal feed, was found
in taco shells, causing a nationwide recall of food products containing yellow
corn.
Eliminating options for local authority over plants/seeds is risky business.
The farm biotech business is controlled by five multinationals, the world's
largest seed and agrochemical companies: Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Bayer and
Dow. Monsanto's genetically modified seed technology accounted for about 90
percent of the total worldwide area devoted to such crops last year. Seed
industry concentration means fewer choices for farmers and consumers and unacceptable
levels of control over the seed supply.
For all these reasons, North Carolina towns and communities must preserve
options for local regulation of plants, and for public debate of genetically
modified crops and trees.
(Hope Shand is research director of the ETC Group in Carrboro, a non-profit
focusing on socioeconomic impacts of new agricultural technologies.)
>
> >> source:
>> http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/2420322p-8797890c.html 24may2005
>>
>
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