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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org, nmgreens@yahoogroups.com
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Industry aims to strip local control of food supply
  • Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 12:02:31 -0600

Turning Point for California’s Farm Industry
Industry aims to strip local control of food supply
- Britt Bailey, Becky Tarbotton
Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Environmental and healthy-farming advocates are learning what tobacco-free
campaigners learned in the 1990s: When local governments step up to protect
their community's citizens, industry responds by taking away the authority
of local governments.

In spring 2004, three California counties and two cities passed ordinances
that restricted growing genetically modified organisms. In response, state
Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter (Kern County), earlier this month gutted and
then amended Senate Bill 1056 with some of the broadest and most sweeping
pre-emptive language ever written in the Legislature. Its purpose? To
override existing local restrictions, prohibit any future initiatives that
might restrict genetically engineered crops and eliminate local control of
seeds and plants. Essentially, to hijack control of our food supply.

Just as the tobacco industry acted to restrict local tobacco controls in 20
states, agribusiness corporations and their affiliated associations are
behind the moves to thwart local efforts to restrict the growing of
genetically modified foods. In the 2005 session, 16 state legislatures,
including California, introduced bills prohibiting local control of seeds
and plants. The nearly identical language used in each of the bills
illustrates a systematic and ordered approach to stifling community
decision-making. Agribusiness councils, whose leadership includes members
such as bioengineering firms Monsanto and Syngenta, are promoting the
legislation while the bills' initial language has been developed by the
American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative public-policy
organization.

What will such pre-emptive laws do to local control? According to Tom
Campbell, director of the California Department of Finance, "state
pre-emption laws can do two things. They can overturn the will of the
people
in the event an initiative has passed, and they can prevent the
introduction
of laws on the same subject from being introduced in the future."
Pre-empting local authority stifles citizen participation in the democratic
process and should give pause for any legislator or citizen. What are
voters
in Mendocino and Marin counties to think when their votes to restrict
genetically modified crops and protect local food and farming are worthy of
so little respect?

There is no denying that agricultural biotechnology is a complex and
controversial issue. You would think this would be all the more reason
public debate and discussion should be encouraged, not silenced. Yet if
legislators such as Florez have their way, citizens will lose an
opportunity
to be part of the discussion to resolve one of the most challenging issues
of our time. Local initiatives and citizen actions restricting genetically
modified crops are a signal to the Legislature that Californians are
concerned about this new technology and, in the absence of government
leadership, are taking matters into their own hands to protect their
environment, economy and health.

Proponents of SB1056 assert that California needs uniformity and
homogeneity
with regard to seed laws and that the state could not possibly handle a
patchwork of laws passed by local government. Yet, if local authority over
seeds is taken away by the state, then so is every farmer's choice not to
use genetically engineered seeds and plants. Once genetically engineered
plants are released into the environment, historically preserved and
heirloom seed strains are forever affected, according to a 2004 report by
the Union of Concerned Scientists. Diverse agricultural economies may
suffer
from losses due to this contamination. For example, if organic crops become
contaminated with genetically engineered pollen, those farmers may lose
their organic certification.

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to James Madison in which he
stated, "I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but
the people, and if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not
to take the power from them." That critical power is now being challenged,
as state Sen. Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata (Humboldt County), noted: "Regardless
of
how you feel about the (genetically modified organism) issue, taking away
local voters' rights is a serious threat to democracy."

Please voice your opposition to SB1056, which impedes our ability as
community members to protect and create a sustainable food supply. Contact
your legislator (to find out who that is, go to
leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html), Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata
(senator.perata@sen.ca.gov) and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez
(assemblymember.nunez@assembly.ca.gov). This legislation does not represent
the freedoms our country was founded upon.

Britt Bailey is director of Environmental Commons in Gualala (Mendocino
County) and environmental policy instructor at the College of Marin in
Kentfield. For updated information on the seed and plant pre-emption bills,
visit www.environmentalcommons.org/gmo-tracker.html. Becky Tarbotton is
campaign coordinator for Californians for GE-Free Agriculture
(www.calgefree.org), a statewide coalition promoting ecologically and
economically viable agriculture.

Page B - 9
URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/20/EDG42DQD0T1.DTL





  • [Livingontheland] Industry aims to strip local control of food supply, Tradingpost, 07/20/2005

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