Report from the Grassroots--The Mendocino Victory

In Historic Vote, Citizens Vote to Keep Mendocino County, California GMO
Free

by David Kupfer
Ukiah, CA 3-2-0410:30 pm PST

Signaling a turning point in the effort to halt the introduction of GMO
crops in the U.S., the citizens of Mendocino county today dramatically
approved a countywide measure that prohibits the "propagation,
cultivation, raising and growing of genetically modified organisms."

With 98% of the precincts reporting, the final tally was 56.34% for
and 43.66% against.

Measure H, which had wide support from county residents, farmers,
wineries, business owners, and even the County Sheriff, is the first
county wide ban on GE crops in the US. It's victory is sure to be felt
around the nation and world.

CropLife America -- a national lobbying group representing agribusiness
giants like Monsanto, DuPont and Dow -- pumped an unprecedented
$518,000 into the opposition's smear campaign to defeat the initiative
and is expected to attack the measure in court. The proponents of
Measure H spent $79,000, raised mostly from small local contributions.

"The County has never seen anything like this campaign. This victory
means the people of Mendocino County saw through the bullying of
corporations that were trying to undermine the democratic process. These
multibillion dollar corporations underestimated our savvy citizenry.
Passage of Measure H is just the beginning. We're the first county... but the
revolution is just starting," said Els Cooperider, the community leader
who spearheaded Measure H and co-owner of the certified all organic
Ukiah Brewery.

"This is a great day for local democracy. It's a demonstration of
citizens taking control at the most immediate level-which is at home in
the places where they live," said Doug Mosel, Yes on H's Campaign
Coordinator. "It's an example of local government at it's best,acting to
protect it's citizens and the local economy and future generations. In
our present climate of corporate domination of the food system this is a
reclaiming of responsibility for agriculture at a local level. This
amazing local campaign demonstrates where transnational corporations are
vulnerable. No amount of money can replace the love and commitment of
people who care passionately about the place where they live."

Local vintner Katrina Frey, co-owner of Frey Winery said "Mendocino
County is the first GMO-free county in the nation, and I am sure it will
not be the last. There are currently 9 other California Counties
considering similar measures. I'm sure this will motivate many other
counties nationwide to mount similar efforts."

"This will have a tremendous significance as other states will look at
this success as an example. It is a great victory," said Percy
Schmeiser, a 73-year-old farmer in Saskatchewan, Canada said tonight. We
have seen here in Canada the damage done to the environment, our food,
and pure seed stocks. This win is a great thing for it will stem losses
suffered by the organic farming community.

Schmeiser is world-renown for his resistance to the legal attacks and
harassment by Monsanto. Monsanto accused him of theft" of its
intellectual property rights because traces of its "Roundup Ready"
canola were found in Schmeiser' crop. Monsanto's genetically-altered
canola, released into the environment, polluted his fields, ruining a
lifetime of work breeding his own seed.

Local resident Dr. Marc Lappe, Ph.D., Toxicology and Pathology and
noted author, said this evening that this victory has "established the
democratic right of people to say that if you have an uncontrolled technology
that potentially contaminates an entire ecosystem, it's critical that there
is an opportunity for people to speak out on an issue like
Measure H.

I'm very proud of Mendocino County,"said Zeke Grader, executive director
of Pacific Federation of Fishermen's Association declared "This means a
real step forward in protecting the nation's water supply and seafood
from increased pesticide contamination caused by GMO's. "It also
decreases the threat of Genetically Engineered Fish from being released
into the wild population. If this were to happen,they can never be
recalled, causing irreparable damage."

Prior to the election, Allan Noe, vice president of CropLife America, a
national lobbying organization representing the world's leading biotech
agricultural companies, including Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. "We
don't want to see this pick up any steam,'' said "The activist community
is well-known for championing causes and for going all out to fuel their
beliefs.''

>From the start, the measure was a grassroots effort in a sparsely
populated county that grows none of the current varieties of biotech
plants. Locals say Mendocino County's biggest cash crop is undoubtedly
marijuana.

But the county is also home to a number of wineries and vineyards,
including Fetzer Vineyards, the largest grower of organic grapes in the
nation with plans to produce only organic wines by 2010.

Like a lot of backers of a ban on genetically modified crops, Fetzer
President Paul Dolan had declared his worries about future vineyard
contamination problems. No commercialized genetically modified grapes
are currently on the market, however researchers are experimenting with
gene splicing to see if they can protect grapes against various
devastating vineyard diseases. "We have concerns for the impact on the
quality of wine in general,'' Dolan said. "And secondly, we're
concerned with our ability to maintain organic certification.''

In its numerous mailers and radio ads, the corporate-funded opposition
campaign never stressed the virtues of biotech crops and other products.
Rather, it argued that the measure was poorly written and would be
costly for taxpayers to enforce, requiring the county agricultural
commissioner to seek out and destroy genetically modified plants.

In Vermont, 70 towns across the state of Vermont pass Town Meeting
measures calling for a moratorium on genetically engineered crops.

Earlier this year, The National Research Council, an arm of the National
Academy of Sciences, issues a note of caution urging more attention to
methods of preventing engineered plants and animals from breeding from
their wild relatives. Committee Chairman Kirk said "Deciding how to
confine a genetically engineered organisms cannot be an afterthought."
Mendocino County has start that leverage to halt the spread of GMO's
before we are able to understand the consequences to our environment.

In February a landmark report by the Union of Concerned Scientists
showing that federal regulations have failed to prevent contamination
Their ground breaking report documenting wide spread genetic
contamination of corn, soybean and canola seed stock seeds. (see
www.ucsusa.org for "Gone to Seed" report).

It has been estimated that between 60 and 75% of ALL non-organic
supermarket processed foods test positive for the presence of
genetically engineered ingredients, There is no legislation requiring GE
foods to be labeled as such, despite an estimate that between 80-95% of
the people want this labeling (most want the labeling so they can avoid
GE foods).

Countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and most of Latin America agreed
tighter rules governing trade in gene-modified seeds last Friday,
February 27th, prompting dismay among major producers such as the United
States.

Analysts use many different phrases to describe genetically engineered
foods. The biotech industry rarely uses the phrase "genetically
engineered foods," sticking with the more bland (and less controversial)
phrase "biotech foods."

In Europe, genetically engineered foods are more commonly referred to as
genetically modified foods, genetically altered foods or GMOs (short for
genetically modified organisms). But scientists generally agree that
"genetically engineered" more accurately represents the process than
"genetically modified."

Supporters of biotech foods have argued that we have been genetically
modifying our foods for centuries, through a process known as
hybridization, aka interbreeding. That process is far different than the
recombinant DNA splicing used in modern agricultural biotechnology.

Note that the new eleventh edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate
Dictionary added the word "Frankenfood" as another term to describe
genetically engineered food.