Posted on 03/02/2007 5:55:35 AM PST by FLOutdoorsman
Stepping into the middle of a growing debate, a freshman assemblyman has introduced legislation that would make companies developing genetically engineered crops liable for damages if their work results in contamination of other fields.
The bill by Assemblyman Jared Huffman also would ban open-field production of genetically engineered crops used in the development of medications. And it would require growers to give county agriculture commissioners at least 30 days notice before engaging in open-field development of other genetically modified plants.
Huffman, D-San Rafael, said the measure is needed to protect California farmers against significant losses if their conventional or organic crops are contaminated by genetically engineered plants, seeds or pollen.
His bill would cover cases in which a grower claimed annual losses of at least $3,500.
He said an incident last year in which an experimental form of rice being developed by a German company showed up in grain elevators in Arkansas and Missouri should serve as a wake-up call for California.
Hundreds of rice farmers in Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana have filed lawsuits claiming losses because of that contamination.
"It certainly underscores the urgency of taking action before things like that happen here," Huffman said.
The bill would clarify who would be responsible for damages if there was contamination. With some limited exceptions, it would be the seed producer, chemical company or other manufacturer paying for the genetically altered crop rather than the farmer growing it under contract.
"I'm not interested in farmers suing farmers...," Huffman said. "The kind of damage that can occur when cross-contamination does happen can be of a scale where you're not going to be able to make farmers whole unless they can hold the manufacturer responsible."
The measure also would identify who was involved in genetically modified crop production. Right now, no one seems to have a clear idea of how much of that activity is taking place in California.
The bill would prevent the mixing of pharmaceutical plants with other crops by preventing those projects from being conducted in open fields.
"We're seeing food crops being engineered to grow chemicals as an alternative way of producing things like vaccines and antibiotics," Huffman said. "That is fascinating stuff, but obviously you don't want those crops getting into the food supply."
Huffman's bill might go too far for some segments of California's agriculture industry and not far enough for others.
Greg Massa, co-chairman of the Rice Producers of California, said he welcomes Huffman's bill but added, "I don't really know if it's enough."
His group of 200 farmers wants a moratorium on genetically modified rice experimentation and production. A study it commissioned found that California growers could lose about 40 percent of their rice market if Japan, China and several other nations imposed trade embargoes to keep out genetically modified crops.
"We can't take the risk," Massa said. "The report we just put out said pretty clearly that our customers don't want (genetically engineered crops) and that contamination in California would be much more severe than in the South."
A California law adopted in 2000 might give farmers enough protection already, said Tim Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the California Rice Commission, which represents growers and marketers.
That statute, the California Rice Certification Act, provides for a committee representing growers, handlers, warehouses and researchers to suggest regulations designed to prevent the intermingling of different varieties of rice.
"That really has provided us, at least up to this point, the tools we need to manage customers' response to genetically modified crops," Johnson said. "That said, the industry will take as deliberative a review of Mr. Huffman's legislation as we did in developing the California Rice Certification Act of 2000."
The California Farm Bureau Federation opposes the bill "as it stands now," said Cynthia Cory, the bureau's director of environmental affairs.
But she said her group of 91,000 farmers and others in the agriculture industry, including companies engaged in genetic engineering, is willing to work with Huffman.
"Biotechnology across the board is very important to this state," she said. "I don't think the bill acknowledges that."
The bill's ban on open-field production of corn and other crops for use in medications could curtail "a cheap and effective way to produce the drugs," Cory said.
Huffman's bill may be unnecessary because legal remedies already exist, said Richard Matteis, executive vice president of the California Seed Association, which also represents some companies involved in genetic engineering.
"In California, I'm not aware of any growers being damaged because of the presence of biological crops in their crops," he said. "I think the system is working."
Huffman's bill is similar to legislation introduced in 2005 by Assemblyman John Laird. That measure passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee but died in the Assembly Agriculture Committee.
Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said his bill ran into "big fears that (it) would get in the way of certain agriculture production."
"I think those fears are misplaced," he said. "I think it's an issue of markets. There are potentially markets that will close themselves to American crops if they believe there is (a genetically modified crop) involved."
Huffman's bill might have a better chance of passing because of increased concern about the potential threat posed by the inadvertent spread of genetically modified grasses and crops since his bill failed, Laird said.
Several federal court rulings in the last six months have found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been lax in enforcing environmental protections on genetically modified crop projects, Laird said.
In one case, a judge ordered the department to conduct more detailed reviews of genetically engineered plant projects after studies found that pollen from weed killer-resistant grass had drifted more than 12 miles from plots in Madras, Ore., and bred with conventional plants.
"Two things are inevitable on this issue," Huffman said. "One is genetic engineering is here to stay. We're going to see it more and more.
"But the second is there is going to be some regulation of this, and hopefully we can put a coherent policy in place before California experiences a cross-contamination disaster like the one that happened in Arkansas."
All crops are "engineered". It's just that some forms of engineering are more productive than others.
Ask if they have canola oil in their kitchen.
ping
...or any other foodstuff not gathered from the wild.
Yikes. Insects will not eat rape seeds. That is a rule of thumb I follow.
I only use olive.
Rapeseed makes a darned good lube oil.
Works nice on my lanterns too.
I will only cook with Olive though.
True, they're also producing some vastly expensive pending problems. Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" genes have crosspollinated both Poa annua and Conyza canadensis, a grass and an astercae, two of the most promicuous families of aggressive weeds. In this habitat restorationist's view, this is a pending disaster, particularly for farmers and ranchers because plants in these families constitute some of their most pernicious weeds.
To deliberately destroy the usefulness of glyphosate when the patent runs out and transfer "RoundUp Ready" to your hot new and far more expensive patented herbicides (which is what I have always thought Monsanto was doing with "RoundUp Ready") is an actionable cause for compensation.
Nothing wrong with trying to eat pre-agricultural foods :) It saved my life and got me back to work.
I like to know what is in my food, and I understand the farmers who saw crop damage because some other farmer exposed them to risk without their consent. At the same time, I realize how impossible it is to track every detail of contamination and cross-over in agriculture, so I don't really think these types of lawsuits will be very useful.
"I'm not interested in farmers suing farmers...," Huffman said. "The kind of damage that can occur when cross-contamination does happen can be of a scale where you're not going to be able to make farmers whole unless they can hold the manufacturer responsible."
And the lawyers can make a ton of money bleeding the manufacturers white.
Sad but true, but the manufacturer comes out with a product with serious externalities, somebody has to pay for the cost of the risk. If you socialize it using government to indemnify the manufacturer by selective regulations, the FARMER pays for their risk taking. Do you want farmers screwed by corporate ag?
The risks associated with getting sued would focus biotech upon lower risk opportunities, golden rice being a fine example. That learning experience and the profit derived could then be applied to managing higher risk products with more knowledge. That's how things work in a free market, not one with socialized risk.
I'll probably regret asking, but just what "serious externalities" do you think occur when crops are cross pollinated?
Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" seeds are resistant to glyphosate herbicides (the active ingredient in RoundUp). You can hose the crop with RoundUp and only the weeds will die... for now.
Those genes are now cross pollinating with some genetically promiscuous and massively destructive weeds. It would be disastrous for those who fight them, but a windfall for Monsanto.
Monsanto's patents on RoundUp have expired. They have a slew of more toxic alternatives that they want to sell for a LOT higher price. Transferring resistance to glyphosate herbicides to weeds would ruin the most benign weapon we have and force us to buy Monsanto's more expensive products, most of which require permitting. If I was forced to hire a licensed Pest Control Applicator to spray my property, fifteen years of restoration work would be ruined. It simply can't be done because of the weather sentitivities of a number of complex and hazardous processes. I'd be bankrupt in two years.
For Monsanto to hide from liability behind the blessing of a government bureaucracy is political corruption in its currently most ubiquitous form.
B) Glyphosate resistance doesn't affect a plant's resistance to non-glyphosate based herbicides. If the neighbor isn't using a glyphosate herbicide, he shouldn't care if a weed has glyphosate resistance. If he is using a glyphosate herbicide, he doesn't have much of a complaint against his neighbor.
A great many landowners are not.
B) Glyphosate resistance doesn't affect a plant's resistance to non-glyphosate based herbicides.
All of which are more toxic and usually more expensive.
If the neighbor isn't using a glyphosate herbicide, he shouldn't care if a weed has glyphosate resistance.
"Shouldn't" according to whom? What do you know of what I do? I am absolutely dependent upon glyphosate.
I have a neighbor who has a 50 acre vineyard. He lets every single weed blow seed a lot of which ends up on my extremely steep (much of it nearly vertical) and erosive native plant reserve. I have 317 plant species, of which 97 are weeds. My goal is to develop the means to separate the two. My property may be the cleanest piece of land on the entire Central Coast of California. If those weeds became glyphosate resistant, I'd be hosed.
I employ probably 20 different control processes, many of which are cutting edge technology, probably a third of which rely upon glyphosate. Because I have such steep land, there are several riparian corridors hereon. We have restrictions on what I can use there. Glyphosate is an absolutely indispensible tool in such places. Rendering the weeds glyphosate resistant would be a disaster for me. Giving Monsanto a pass for causing that loss isn't just.
If he is using a glyphosate herbicide, he doesn't have much of a complaint against his neighbor.
I do habitat restoration research and development. I operate in the wild. If I had to go hire a PCA and subject myself to inspections by idiot bureaucrats for what I do to do this kind of work, they'd refuse. It's too dangerous. We are too remote. The timing is too critical and you don't know what you are talking about.
In one breath you claim you're dependent upon glyphosate herbicides, but in the next, you complain about how bad Monsanto is for having developed glyphosate herbicides and in the next breath this all becomes you neighbor's fault because, apparently, he doesn't care about herbicides at all.
If glyphosate is truly "indespensible" in your operation, it may be your practice, not your neighbor's, that fosters the propagation of resistant weeds. Roundup is recommended for use on cropland only once each second year.
First, we need to understand something here:
There is, as of now, no "glyphosate-proof" weed out there. There are weeds that have had escapes from glyphosate applications at the labeled rate that now need increased levels.
If you dump enough glyphosate onto an actively growing plant, at the right time, with surfactant to gain translocation benefits across the outer plant membrane, the plant is going to die.
The trouble is, too many farmers have been using RoundupReady crop technology without any other backstop at the lowest possible rates and there have been escapes. They want to simply plant a RR crop, go spray the weeds once per season, and be done with it. This is simply poor (or stupid) Integrated Pest Management. A smart IPM practitioner would:
1. Spray a pre-emergent herbicide when the crop is seeded (or before).
2. Seed the crop.
3. Use glyphosate to handle escapes from the pre-plant.
Since there are a great variety of pre-emergent herbicides out there in the most common crops, the pre-plant herbicides could be rotated every year, or rotated when the crops involved are rotated. That would be good IPM. Where Monsanto is to be blamed is that their sales reps have been peddling this RR technology as a silver bullet. It isn't. It is merely one more tool in the IPM toolbox.
For example: the poa annua you speak of can be easily handled in crop areas with pre-plant grass herbicides. In grass areas (ie, poa infesting other grasses, eg, a range situation), there are some new pre-plants being developed/tested that show promise.
Roundup (glyphosate) isn't the only herbicide where poa shows resistance: Diuron has been a favorite pre-plant herbicide for years, a very useful product (and very cheap). Trouble is, too many people have been using it incorrectly, and now there are diuron-resistant strains of poa out there.
The big reason for the rapid adoption of glyphosate by farmers wasn't only marketing/price -- atrazine has been a favorite herbicide in corn for years. Trouble is, atrazine is also mobile in some soils, and is now banned or restricted in some areas. In light of this situation, there was a need for a substitute and RR Corn technology fit very well. Glyphosate is absolutely immobile in the soil, is neutralized immediately on contact with the soil, and has no effect on animals whatsoever. No record keeping necessary, no worry about drift issues aside from direct drift of the droplets themselves. For those who aren't farmers, there are some herbicides (like 2,4-D, for example) that can volatilize after application, form a cloud of active ingredient, drift on the wind and kill plants miles downwind. 2,4-D is a good product, very safe, but these kinds of drift issues make it something that has a limited window of applicability -- once the temperatures start getting hot, you don't want to use 2,4-D too much.
The single biggest mistake I think too many people make in weed control is that they only want to "kill the weeds." Well, Mother Nature abhors a vacuum, and when people persistently use these broad-spectrum contact herbicides, they're too often not giving enough thought as to how to "fill the vacuum" before Nature does. Here in Nevada, we have short growing seasons and a huge number of non-native (and noxious) weeds. #1 rule before reaching for the sprayer is to know what will be done to fill the vacuum, then spray.
OK, I now understand more about your operation.
Here is what I would recommend. BTW, I'm a farmer, licensed applicator, etc.
First, get your license. Many of the products that will work are restricted, not because they are "more toxic" -- they're not. It is because many products are controlled (esp. in California) because there are record keeping requirements or riperian issues.
If you don't have an applicator's license, you are shutting yourself off from a great deal of options that will work, are cost effective and are new technology. This is especially true in California. I have a brother who owns land in CA and products I can buy/apply without invoking my permit here in Nevada are under licensed control in CA. Why? Well, all the doggone hippy environmentalists wanted it that way in California.
As I've told many, many people who are now small-acreage landowners: if you don't get your applicator's permit, you're not a serious steward of the land. You're merely a wanna-be. The only products that aren't restricted are either so safe that even an idiot homeowner can apply them without killing everything within a quarter mile, or are "generally accepted as safe", like sulphur dust.
Second: Go get a "Greenbook."
http://www.greenbook.net/
No one who is a farmer/applicator is without one of these.
Third: modern herbicides (ie herbicides labeled after the mid-90's or so) are not "more toxic" than glyphosate. The EPA no longer labels broad-spectrum products. To gain a license now, a manufacture/registrant must deal with the "risk cup" model, which requires greater crop/site specificity, lower toxicity and higher safety margins for animals/fish/humans.
I have a greenbook from 2005 (I don't buy a new one every year -- they're over $200 a copy), but you can find lots of IPM info online.
If you have specific questions, I'd be happy to help as far as I am able.
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