What is Oregon’s Monsanto Protection Act?

There is no Oregon’s Monsanto Protection Act.

The anti-GMO, anti-technology, regressive crowd has given that title to SB 633, Seed Preemption.

To begin, there is no such thing as the Monsanto Protection Act…anywhere.  There was a Plant Protection Act passed recently in congress. This protects farmers who had legally purchased and planted seed from activist judges who make decisions based on rhetoric and emotion from declaring legal seeds and plants to be illegal and ordering them to be destroyed.

I testified in favor of SB 633 over a month ago.  I still stand by that testimony and the bill.

I have been accused of not supporting democracy and opposing local control because of my support for Seed Preemption. Let’s be clear about this.

• I support States’ rights as granted by the constitution.
• I support less regulation and this bill prevents multiple regulations on county & city levels.
• I support freedom to choose what you eat and grow but cannot dictate that to your neighbor.

As I responded to a recent blog comment.

I am a believer in Farm and Let Farm and I don’t believe in restricting my neighbor’s choice of what he plants. I do believe in being a good neighbor and discussing the options and the science of cross-pollination. If one is truly worried about cross-pollination there are multiple options to how to avoid it besides an outright ban.

Ultimately it is about freedom and choice and once laws & politicians start regulating what we can and cannot grow we lose both.

Lastly, SB 633  has little to do with GMOs and Monsanto.  The Anti-crowd even acknowledges this in a recent Action Alert.  They direct their followers to not mention GMOs when contacting legislators….

Hmm..

This bill makes a level playing field for all Oregon farmers and supported by both Organic and Conventional farmers. If you look through the anti-crowd’s rhetoric and scare tactics you will see that it is a common sense bill.

Good Neighbor Farmers

COEXIST

“I am all for a world of diversity, but that means one farming system cannot claim to have a monopoly of virtue and aim at excluding all other options. Why can’t we have peaceful co-existence? This is particularly the case when it shackles us to old technologies which have higher inherent risks than the new.”

Mark Lynas, a former anti-biotechnology activist, spoke these words last week at the Oxford Farming Conference.

Mr. Lynas spent many years demonizing and vilifying biotechnology, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the companies that researched, developed and produced them.  He accomplished this by spreading fear and

 ”…employed a lot of imagery about scientists in their labs cackling demonically as they tinkered with the very building blocks of life. Hence the Frankenstein food tag – this absolutely was about deep-seated fears of scientific powers being used secretly for unnatural ends.”

However, as he pursued accurate scientific information for his book on global warming he came upon a realization that possibly he was wrong about GMO food. In his words:

“I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.”

Diversity, Coexistence & Acceptance.  I thought this was the world we lived in.  However, it seems to be lacking in agriculture.

It is happening all across the country when it comes to food, fiber and fuel.  It is happening on two different fronts in Oregon.  In Southern Oregon one group seeks to ban the growing of all Genetically Modified Crops in the area.  In the Willamette Valley farmers seek to ban the growing of canola.

Both groups claim to be concerned about cross contamination but they must look at the bigger picture.  They are limiting everyone’s freedoms by establishing these bans.  They lose the option to participate in current or future markets, eliminating crop diversity and hindering consumer choice.

I am not one for holding hands and singing Kum-ba-yah to settle a disagreement, but there is no scientific absolute reason for both of these bans.  What ever happened to being neighborly? Being considerate of what your neighbor is growing and he likewise of you?

I don’t think Mark Lynas’ words could be any truer.

“I am all for a world of diversity, but that means one farming system cannot claim to have a monopoly of virtue and aim at excluding all other options. Why can’t we have peaceful co-existence? This is particularly the case when it shackles us to old technologies which have higher inherent risks than the new.”

Related articles

• Organic farmers in southern Oregon seek ban on genetically modified crops (oregonlive.com)
• Mark Tercek: Mark Lynas and the GMO Debate (huffingtonpost.com)

Worth the Fight, Always

There is never any lack of challenges being a farmer and they never seem to take a break when farmers are busy in the field.

A few things have occurred in the last two months while I was on my harvest hiatus.

Death Tax

Some awesome news, the initiative to End Oregon’s Death Tax, that I wrote about here and here, made the November 2012 ballot!  Finally Oregon has a chance to join 31 other states that have already abolished the State Estate Tax.  This is huge news for family farms, forests, ranches & small business.  However we still have to deal with the federal death tax which is set to return to pre-2001 levels, a million dollar exemption. Stay tuned for more information on this between now and November!

Canola

In August the Oregon Department of Agriculture opened “hundred of thousands” of acres for canola production in the Willamette Valley.  Previously, many acres had been restricted until research was conducted by Oregon State University to determine the potential of interfering via cross-pollination/contamination with Oregon’s specialty seed industry, which include radish seed, cabbage seed, sugar beet seed plus more.   The specialty seed growers are very concerned about the possibility of hurting their current markets.

Interesting enough anti-GMO groups took interest in this issue as well.  The majority of canola produce in the United States is genetically modified to be able to resist certain herbicides and was deregulated by the federal government several years ago.  The “Center for Food Safety“, “Friend of Family Farmers” and a few specialty seed companies filed a lawsuit together to block the potential production.

Here’s the thing, GMO is not the issue.

The issue is the potential of canola to cross pollinate or contaminate with other Brassica crops, such as radish or cabbage.  There also is a concern for increased disease in the those crops.   This situation is very unique, as two of the groups in the lawsuit prefer that GMOs be eliminated from Oregon while the other group, the specialty seed growers, utilize GMOs when available.  They grow Round-up Ready Sugar Beet seeds.

The problem is that one group is anti-technology.   They do not want ANY genetically modified crops in Oregon. End of Story.  If they succeed in “banning” canola in Oregon they will see this as a win for getting biotechnology out of Oregon.  It is potentially a very slippery ugly slope.  I would hope that resolve can come between the Oregon Agriculture community that is divided on this issue. Farmers against farmers means no one wins.

Department of Labor

Our federal government in the past few years has abused their power.

Recently the United States Department of Labor came into Oregon blueberry patches and held their perishable crop hostage until farmers paid a fine.  Instead of allowing the farms due process and a chance to prove their innocence they assumed guilt.  The farms were forced to pay the fine, one being $170,000, so they could get their crops to market and get paid.   They didn’t bother to give a courtesy call to Oregon’s Labor Commissioner or the Oregon Department of Agriculture Director.  This is an example of government out of control.

Worth the Fight

I often question is being a farmer really worth the fight.    Farmers, ranchers and foresters have many obstacles in their paths from unfair taxes, groups who seek to end their business and governments that abuse their power.  However,  I come to the same conclusion every time: It is worth it.  It’s worth it because I know what we do is right and a life and legacy that I wouldn’t trade for many others.

I must thank my friend Dairy Carrie for helping this post to happen. She and I share similar taste in music and while I’ve been too tired to blog lately a group, Cody Canada and the Departed, who we both enjoy released a new single today, “Worth the Fight”.  She challenged a few of us to write if what we do is really worth it. As you can see I clearly think it is.

A few of our  friends do too:

• Agriculture Proud
• Heim Dairy
• JP Loves Cotton
• Dirt Road Charm
• NorthView Dairy 
• The Magic Farmhouse
• Wag’n Tales
• From Heels to Boots
• Slow Money Farm
• Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Country Life
• jldphotography
• The Farmer Feeds Us All
• Calves, kids and my crazy, beautiful life
• Farming America
• Farmer on a Mission

Organic Propaganda

In today’s society consumers are bombarded with Organic Propaganda.  The Organic Food Movement, who doesn’t really care what your family eats, has done a great job of marketing organic food, mostly with scare tactics.  It often times aligns itself with campaigns that create the illusion that it is healthier or safer for you, which is simply false.

Four of these choices are either associated with a health condition or simply a better way to eat...organic does not fall into those categories.

Organic food is no more nutritious for you than conventionally produced food. In 2009, the UK’s Food Standard Agency commissioned a comprehensive review of articles and studies over the last 50 years comparing Organic and Conventionally produced food.  The conclusion found that there was no significant if any nutritional differences in the products and no additional health benefits from eating organic food.   Most people can agree with this because using common sense and some basic science one realizes that for example an apple is apple…you cannot alter the molecules that make an apple by using a different method of production.

A misconception that is often associated with Organic is that they do not use pesticides.  News Flash: They DO use pesticides.  Some pesticides used are the same ones used in conventional methods and others are not.  The difference in pesticides is whether they are synthetically produced or naturally occurring, not whether its safer or not.  A pesticide is meant to get rid a pest that is doing harm and are only used when necessary in any type of farming.   However Organic pesticide usage is not recorded or regulated by the government like conventional usage is.

Leaders in the Organic Food Movement acknowledge that pesticides are used when asked.  However they often to tote that Organic food has less pesticide residue.   Every year the Environmental Working Group publishes an article telling the public which produce contains the most pesticide residue also known as The Dirty Dozen. However they are not very upfront about their methods nor do they explain how pesticide residues are measured on food.  Residues are measured with the chronic reference dose, which is established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), meaning the acceptable level intake one can have without having effects throughout their lifetime.  A study recently published in April in the Journal of Toxicology finds that “dirtiest” produce had levels of pesticides 1,000 times lower than the chronic reference dose.  That means it is very safe to eat.

If Organic food has no additional nutritional benefit and is no more safe to eat than conventional then the cultivation methods must be better for the environment.  Again a misconception with advances such as No-till, GPS, and advanced breeding techniques conventional agriculture overall impact, some argue, is less than organic methods.  Often times organic methods require more tillage, more applications of chemicals and sometimes more land.

Diversity is what makes the agriculture world go around. Organic has a place in the world.  However it is no more superior than any other method of farming.  The Organic Food Movement has marketed it as such because that’s what marketing is.  Convincing consumers that one product is better than the other.  All to increase profits, which is ironic for a movement that’s roots are based in Socialism…but I’ll save that post for another time.  I applaud them for wanting to make more money.  All consumers have freedom of choice and we must all choose what is best for our families and pocketbooks not because someone scared you into it.

Using North Dakota Honey in Portlandia

I just returned from a very exhausting but very fulfilling, blessed week.  I started off the week in Nashville hanging out with people I aspire to be like and finished of the week with a best friend’s wedding! Life does not get much more awesome than that!

I was in Nashville to attend the AgVocacy 2.0 conference put on by the Agchat Foundation. The general purpose of the foundation and conference was to help the attendees communicate our farming, ranching or forestry story more effectively through social media.  A continual theme and conversation topic was how to do we go beyond the choir.  All the attendees do an amazing job interacting with each other, in fact I know I left with a couple more best friends.  But how do we truly breach our comfort zone get to the audience that we don’t have a lot in common with?

My friend Katie Pinke (Blog, Twitter) was a presenter on Basic Blogging and she absolutely rocks at going beyond the choir. Well she just plain rocks in general too!  After her presentation she rewarded people with North Dakota honey for asking questions and then told us to blog about the honey.  I could easily write about all the crops in Oregon that require bees for pollination and hence there are many crop/flavors/varieties of honey in Oregon, but I thought I would take the honey to a deeper meaning.

I believe Ben Franklin once said, “Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.”  If we want to effectively reach our targeted audience we must make friends or acquaintances and then the conversation will come easier.

I by no means am an expert at this, however lately I have been thinking about scenarios in my head and how I would address a subject if it came up.  I also knew I would most likely have a few engaging conversation opportunities come up at the end of the week since my friend was getting married in Portlandia. (Watch this clip if you have not seen it, very accurate portrayal.)

While I had a few great conversations about farming, ag, natural resources and social media at the end of the week one moment stuck out in particular.

While I was getting my hair done Friday morning the hairdresser and I through normal conversations started talking about life. We talked about jobs and that I worked in agriculture; she thought that was neat.  She told me was reading up on the wolf controversy in NE Oregon and she understood both sides and thought there could be a solution in the middle.  I didn’t say much, she seemed to be open-minded.  I ask her why she moved from the East Coast to Portland and she explains it’s because they fell in love with how progressive it is. I bite my tongue because well that could be a can of worms.  She needed a pen to write something down so I grab one out of my purse.  It’s a Monsanto pen. I strategically hand it to her. She comes back 5 mins later and asks if I work for Monsanto in a kind of fearful expression.  I say, “No but I know people who do and I toured their facility in St. Louis last year.” She says, “That just kind of scares me all the weird stuff they do that’s not natural.” I say, “Oh I think it’s neat. They are just helping plants along to where they would get to eventually.  It’s just basic genetics and breeding.”  She says, “Oh, ok interesting.” End of conversation.

While I have no idea if I changed her mind I can at least hope that I unlocked something in her that makes her think differently on GMOs now.  Maybe that’s the first step to going beyond the choir by planting simple seeds of truth.