http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=29214Seeds of (genetic) change
Canadian farmer sounds the alarm of the corporate-created monster possibly heading this way
By Tom Gascoyne
This article was published on 02.19.04.
MERCY, MERCY MR. PERCY
Percy Schmeiser, a former Canadian canola farmer, shows where Monsanto's genetically modified canola first showed up in his fields.
In 1947 Percy Schmeiser and his wife Louise began growing canola on their Saskatchewan farm located about 250 miles north of the Montana-North Dakota border. Each year they saved and reused the seeds, harvesting them from the plants that thrived best in the soil and climate conditions in that part of the great Canadian plains.
In 1997, the Schmeisers' world changed forever.
Neighboring farmers had began using genetically modified (GM) canola seeds produced by Monsanto Canada Inc., the multinational giant that for the past 10 years has worked to market GM crops, including corn, rice and wheat.
Today the Schmeisers no longer farm; instead they find themselves pitted in court and world opinion against one of the world's largest corporations. As a result, Percy Schmeiser has become a modern-day Paul Revere, traveling the world to warn of a frightening and potentially devastating future for agriculture, in particular family and organic farmers.
Last week the 73-year-old Schmeiser passed through Chico, where he gave a talk at Chico State University. The next day he met with members of the Lundberg family rice operation in Richvale, where this strange new world of agriculture is viewed with a sort of anxious confidence that, with some protections already in place, the California rice industry will survive the threat of genetically engineered crops.
http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=30005This article was published on 04.15.04.
Square dealing through genetics.
Heck, no, GMOs
A group of concerned citizens is launching a petition drive to get an ordinance forbidding the growth of genetically engineered organisms in Butte County on the Nov. 2 ballot.
The ordinance is necessary because the biotech industry has yet to come up with a way to prevent genetically modified crops from contaminating the crops of growers who prefer to remain GMO-free, said Scott Wolf of Paradise, who co-chairs Citizens for a G.E.-Free Butte. “We’re not against this technology ultimately,” he said. “We just want people to look at the risks and long-term consequences of this.”
Using a Mendocino County ordinance as a blueprint, the group wrote up the “County Ordinance Prohibiting Growing of Genetically Engineered Organisms” and submitted it to Butte County offices. The ordinance outlines health and economic risks of genetically engineered crops and would forbid their cultivation except in controlled lab or educational settings. Violations would be prosecuted similar to a public-nuisance charge.
The coalition of attorneys, academics, farmers and others had been considering drafting an ordinance for some time, but it was a talk by Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser that pushed them to action. After Schmeiser’s canola crop was contaminated by a genetically modified crop in a neighboring field, Monsanto sued the farmer for “using” its technology without paying for it. “For many of us, it stirred up a sense of moral outrage,” Wolf said.
and before you knew it we had our signatures turned, and got 39% of Butte County residents to vote in favor of Measure D, not enough, but... then last year California Rice farmers banned GE Rice, so our efforts may have helped somewhat...
http://www.organicconsumers.org/biod/butte060204.cfm..snip
Clerk-Recorder Candace Grubbs said it will be several days for the petitions to be processed. If enough signatures were turned in, the issue will be on the November ballot unless the Board of Supervisors itself votes to ban genetically engineered crops.
Organizer Susan Sullivan said they actually collected 10,100 signatures, but volunteers found some that were obviously going to have to be thrown out.
If the effort is successful, Butte would be the second county in the state to ban genetically modified crops. Humboldt County was the first.
Genetic engineering is where genes from one organism are spliced into the DNA of another plant.
Sullivan said her group became inspired after the visit of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser. Schmeiser lost a court battle with Monsanto, a corporation that markets genetically modified seed and herbicides.
Schmeiser claims Monsanto unjustly pursued him for patent infringement when seed from genetically-modified canola somehow got onto Schmeiser's farm.
Sullivan said she and 131 volunteers found support for the ban in most Butte County communities. "We're a really diverse group of farmers, mothers and citizens," Sullivan said.
..snip