GE Free Boulder County Campaign Launched

Food fight
Local activists join the fight against GMOs

by Joel Warner

It's highly appropriate that at the culinary smorgasbord that was the Boulder Creek Festival this past weekend, among the wafts of bratwurst sizzling on the grill, the flurries of powdered sugar raining down on funnel cakes and teams of color-coded temps bestowing free samples of the latest soy-based delicacies on unsuspecting passersby, a new Boulder-based food movement was born.

At the festival the Colorado Genetic Engineering Action Network (COGEAN) formally launched the GE Free Boulder County campaign, a grassroots movement pushing Boulder County to ban the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) crops on public and private lands in the county. Despite the local movement's humble origins, GE Free Boulder County points to a growing battle over the farmlands of America-and the world. As giant corporations try to use any means necessary to push foods and products based on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on consumers, local activists and small farmers are joining together to take a stand for natural, sustainable alternatives.

"Boulder County, as a progressive bellwether, should go GMO-free," says Dave Georgis, director of COGEAN and lead organizer behind the GE Free Boulder County campaign. Since Colorado does not allow county-wide ballot initiatives, local anti-GMO activists have to rely on Boulder County commissioners to ban GE crops. The campaign is currently educating the public about GMOs and collecting citizen signatures. When the new county commissioners are elected in the fall, the activists will bring their arguments to county officials.

According to Georgis, the cultivation of GE crops, whether for food, pharmaceutical drugs or for other consumer products, is a major concern because no one knows the long-term health and environmental effects of growing and eating organisms the genes of which have been altered.

"The fact of the matter is that there has never been a single government agency that has completed its own tests [on GMOs]," says Georgis, who adds that independent studies have suggested GE products are associated with problems including intestinal ailments, increases in allergies and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And while GMOs have been heralded as a way to create crops that need few or no additional pesticides, Georgis notes that a 2003 study found that GE crops have actually increased the country's use of some pesticides in the past eight years, thanks in part to the spread of pesticide-resistant weeds and bugs.

Anxiety over GE crops has been exacerbated by the fact that these space-age plants are quickly spreading throughout the world's farmland-whether farmers like it or not. Like Frankensteins in the fields, the GE crops are breaking free of their bounds as their seeds are spread by the wind into hitherto GE-free fields. Once these plants have taken root in these fields, it's next to impossible to eradicate them without destroying the entire crop. In a recent study of foods in Welsh supermarkets, scientists found that of 25 products tested, 10 contained GMOs, eight of which were labeled GMO-free or organic.

"You cannot contain this stuff," says Georgis. "We have a lot of organic farmers in Boulder, and they are at risk of this. Basically, we don't have any mechanisms in place to protect farmers from contamination. Until we have a way to protect organic farmers from contamination from another farm, we should not allow [GMO cultivation] to take place. We can't allow one person to take away another person's livelihood."

Boulder Mayor Will Toor, who is running for county commissioner, is very open to considering a GMO ban in Boulder public lands and wants to hear more about a ban on private lands. The city of Boulder has banned GMOs on open-space lands.

"I am very skeptical of allowing GMOs to be used on public lands," says Toor. "My sense is that there is not yet the appropriate level of proof of ecological safety for the use of GMOs. And, given that I think that open space lands are purchased [in part] with the goal of maintaining ecological integrity, I am very skeptical of allowing GMOs on [county] open-space lands."

Toor and other local officials will likely look to recent developments in Mendocino County, Calif., to inform their decisions. In March the largely agrarian county, known for its vineyards, became the first county in the nation to ban the growing of genetically altered crops and animals on both public and private lands.

"We don't want [GMOs] even to get a start here. We don't want it to even get a foothold. That seems to be the increasing desire of people in the United States," says Doug Mosel, campaign coordinator for GMO-Free Mendocino. "The more counties there are who pass similar ordinances, the wider the protection of our food system."

The voter-approved Mendocino ban could usher in a spate of similar GMO prohibitions. Anti-GMO movements in Hawaii and Vermont are quickly gaining steam. Several other California counties are facing GMO-ban initiatives in upcoming elections.

But judging from the opposition to the Mendocino ban, the biotechnology industry is not going to give up their GE crops without a fight. Under the collective guise of CropLife America, biotech companies including Monsanto, DuPont and DOW spent nearly $700,000 in a failed attempt to keep the county of 87,000 from banning GMOs, or roughly $55 on each "No" vote.

"The amount of opposition and the level of spending to defeat such a measure is some indication of the desperation of the bio-ag industry to take control of the food system, and to force on farmers and consumers alike genetically modified food," says Mosel.

Some say negative PR might be the least of the natural food movement's worries-a recent court ruling in Canada might have opened the door for a frightening new GMO tactic: takeover by contamination.

In late May, the Canada Supreme Court allowed the biotech giant Monsanto to sue Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser for stealing its seeds. According to Schmeiser, the GE seeds had blown into his field and he had inadvertently saved and replanted the patented seeds with his own stock, seeds he had been cultivating for 50 years. Many say the ruling paves the way for biotech companies to sue farmers for patent infringement when GE seeds inadvertently contaminate the farmers' fields.

According to Georgis, as GE crops spread throughout the world, this ruling could lead to subsistence farmers-50 percent of the world agricultural market-ceding control of seeds that have been cultivated for generations to biotech companies when their fields become contaminated.

"It sounds like a conspiracy, but all the pieces are in place for that to happen," says Georgis.

The natural food movement might face another threat-corruption from within.

Recently the U.S. Department of Agriculture attempted to weaken its organic standards to allow hormones and antibiotics in dairy cattle, pesticides on produce and potentially contaminated fishmeal as feed for livestock. While citizen groups and the organic food industry managed to stave off the change, some say the threat pointed to the organic industry's growing adulteration. These critics say the $11-billion organic industry, once driven by small farms and production companies, is now headed by mega-corporations who care only about the bottom line-even if it means sacrificing the integrity of organics.

These critics point out that major companies like Heinz, Dean, General Mills and Tyson own most leading organic brands, including Cascadian Farm, Seeds of Change, Odwalla, Morningstar Farms, Boca Foods, Stonyfield Farm, Rice Dream and Ben & Jerry's. These same companies also provide most of the legislation and policy funding for the Organic Trade Association (OTA). Considering this, critics say it's not surprising that a recent OTA conference hosted a panel on the co-existence of organic and biotech goods.

It's easy to see that as the GE Free Boulder County campaign gains momentum, it will likely face serious opposition. But it's a fight Georgis and others are ready to take head on-from the Creek Festival to the world, they are ready to spread the word about organic, natural and sustainable goodness.

Says Georgis, "Boulder, as a community that has already taken a stand on issues of social justice, should see this as protecting our backyard agriculture, but also [as a statement] that the GMO industry as it is being created today is a threat to world agriculture."

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
Dave Georgis
director@foodlabeling.org
303.499.2175