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Written by Truth About Trade & Technology
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Tuesday, 04 August 2009 16:15 |
Longmont Times-Call (Colorado)
July 31, 2009
By John Fryar
BOULDER — A Boulder County advisory panel disagrees with a staff recommendation to allow genetically modified sugar beets to be grown on county-owned farmland.
On an 8-3 vote early this (Friday) morning, Food and Agriculture Policy Council members withheld their support of the county staff’s proposal to permit the planting of Roundup Ready sugar beets on open space land farmers lease from the county.
At issue are 900 or so total acres of county-owned parcels of ag land southeast and north of Longmont, where six farmers are seeking county permission to grow sugar beets genetically engineered to resist the herbicide Roundup, a weed killer manufactured by the agribusiness and chemical company Monsanto.
Months of debates over those Boulder County farmers’ applications have featured disagreements over the safety and environmental impacts of genetically modified organisms and the scientific claims being advanced by pro- and anti-GMO factions.
On Thursday night, several Food and Agriculture Policy Council members expressed dismay at having to take a stand now on the Roundup Ready sugar beets proposal. They said Boulder County needs a broader and clearer set of policies about GMOs in general, and about the future uses of county open space for conventional farming or for organic farming.
Council member Wendy Moschetti, for example, said: “At this point in time, my vote is no” because “ I feel very, very strongly that we need a plan and we need a framework.”
Council vice chairman Jim England said that scientific disputes aside, neither the county staff nor the applicant farmers had provided enough critical financial information such as a cost-benefit analysis of growing genetically modified crops.
One of the ag council members supporting the GMO sugar beets proposal, however, was farmer Dick Miller, who said after the public testimony that “I’ve heard as much nonsense tonight” from anti-GMO activists “as I’ve heard in my entire lifetime.”
Miller said he’d learned from Thursday’s hearing, as well as in earlier meetings on the sugar-beet requests, that “the lack of knowledge about agriculture in this community is very disturbing.”
The position against Roundup Ready sugar beets taken by a majority of Food and Agriculture Policy Council members came shortly after midnight Thursday, following nearly seven hours of staff presentations, public-hearing testimony and committee discussion.
The food and ag council’s stance puts it at odds with another panel’s advice to the Board of County Commissioners.
Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee members voted 6-1 on July 23 to support the county staff’s recommendation: Let the farmers grow the genetically engineered sugar beets, as long as they adhere to certain guidelines and restrictions.
Boulder County commissioners will consider the two advisory panel’s conflicting advice on Aug. 25, when commissioners hold their own public hearing on the six farmers’ Roundup Ready sugar beets application.
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