“In California,” joked the writer Truman Capote, “everyone goes to a therapist, is a therapist, or is a therapist going to a therapist.”
Perhaps that helps explain why the craziest political movement in America is taking root in the Golden State: The effort to ban genetically enhanced crops.
Last March, California’s Mendocino County became the first in the nation to outlaw GM plants (by the way - they don’t happen to grow any). Nearly 57 percent of the local electorate voted in favor of Measure H, as it was called on the ballot. Anti-biotech activists now refer to it, approvingly, as the “H-Bomb.”
They’ve got one thing right: It’s radioactive. Mendocino County residents will discover that their new law is extremely expensive to enforce (assuming they even try to enforce it). And although Mendocino’s climate is not conducive to corn, cotton, or soybeans--America’s major biotech crops--the pace of progress is so fast these days that the county’s farmers soon may discover they’re not allowed to use the latest products of agricultural technology.
Now activists in several other counties want to repeat Mendocino’s mistake. Residents in Butte, Humboldt, Marin, and San Luis Obispo Counties will consider their own versions of the H-Bomb in November.
I hope they make like bomb squads and defuse this emerging movement. Yet some or all of these ballot initiatives may succeed. This could be the start of a harmful trend.
The enemies of biotechnology are certainly determined. They have said publicly that their ultimate goal is to block biotech crops in as many as 20 California counties. The targets for 2005 and beyond include Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma Counties. The most recent target was Trinity County. Just recently, that County Board of Supervisors quietly passed an ordinance that bans the growth of genetically enhanced crops.
This modern-day Prohibitionist movement is insulting to farmers everywhere. We ought to be allowed to make our own decisions about what we grow. If one of my neighbors here in Iowa wants to start a banana farm, I may tell him he’s being a fool--but I don’t think it’s my responsibility to pass a law forbidding his foolishness. That’s not how we do things in America.
Some of these counties may find themselves really hurting their farmers. Conventional rice growers in Butte County, for instance, say their initiative is so poorly worded that it could threaten local research programs. And Santa Clara County stands to benefit if scientists perfect a form of genetically-enhanced broccoli that can grow in hotter temperatures than conventional varieties. This product is in the biotech pipeline right now.
Californians may like their therapists, but I wish they would listen to their doctors--i.e., the scientific Ph.D.-holders who have informed us again and again that biotech foods do not pose even the slightest health hazard to human beings. Some of the best biotech research in the world is going on in California right now, at places like UC-Davis. Researchers are learning new ways to feed the planet and protect the environment.
The people who want to ban these cutting-edge crops can’t point to a single scientific study showing that biotech food has ever caused anyone so much as to sneeze. They can’t because no such thing exists. These foods are perfectly safe. If they weren’t, farmers like me wouldn’t grow them in the first place. And we certainly wouldn’t feed them to our families.
Yet the activists won’t give up easily. “Whether it’s in the courtroom, the statehouse, or in the campaign trenches, we’re here to support these counties and to protect our hard-won victories,” said Ryan Zinn of the Organic Consumer Association.
It’s too bad Mr. Zinn feels this way. I don’t know of any efforts on the part of farmers who grow biotech crops to pass laws ordering people like Mr. Zinn to stop growing or eating organic food. I guess some people are determined to boss others around.
California’s major farming counties in the Central Valley won’t get caught up in this nonsense, but they may need to take action to protect themselves. The anti-biotech activists would love to recruit enough Sacramento lawmakers to approve a statewide ban. Before that happens, perhaps a group of more sensible legislators will pass a law restoring the rights of California farmers.
For many of us, that would be the best therapy of all.
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“In California,” joked the writer Truman Capote, “everyone goes to a therapist, is a therapist, or is a therapist going to a therapist.”
