Trust the farmers not the chemical companies
What can you say about a two to one vote to ban the growing of Genetically Modified Organisms in Southern Oregon? And how does that relate to the self-described 'trusted leaders' in the area who endorse GMOs? Is it that these 'trusted leaders,' as they call themselves, are out of touch with their constituents, or did the big biotech companies just find it easy to influence them to try influence the vote in their direction? Either way it's not pretty.
First you had the Jackson County Administrator, Danny Jordan, very publicly saying that enforcement of a ban on using GM crop seeds would cost the County over $200,000 a year. He even threw in the scenario of the taxpayers having to dig up whole fields and treating the dirt to get rid of the chemicals and plant parts of GMOs. Where did that come from? Other counties in the country that have passed GMO bans don't experience any cost to the taxpayer. He did say in his public announcement of the dire costs of a ban, that it may possibly cost nothing. But the opponents of the ban focused entirely on costs to the taxpayer.
Nor did the Medford Mail Tribune balance his statements with his 'no cost' statements. The MT went so far as to write special articles that will go down in the annals of snark journalism for even thinking that a ban on GMOs would be appropriate. And of course the MT uncategorically recommended a 'no vote' on the measure to ban GMOs. What makes them experts in the field?
And then you had the Chamber of Commerce recommending a 'no vote' as well. That happened just after they hosted 'a presenter' at a special Chamber Board meeting. Chamber members were incensed at not being consulted on such a declaration. I've seen that a lot in Alaska where a blanket fishermen's group will issue press releases that favor the more affluent of their membership and harms many of the family fishermen and communities. Many of their 'member organizations' don't even have anything to do with fishing, but the total number of member groups are always cited. I've been writing about this for years.
In fact I just came back from North Carolina where I collaborated face to face with a prominent fisheries writer there. My question to her was, why did you quit? I all but stopped writing about this stuff as well. The answer is that it is a closed system and there is no talking reason to the folks who are manipulating it for their benefit. I've always gone by the maxim that you have to go around the problem. Armies do that all the time via 'flank attacks.' It's only logical because these folks get so entrenched and use partially interested allies to full advantage.
This has been obvious to students of how society works for a long time, so in about 1991 I proposed a trade association concept among Alaska fishermen to let them determine their fate for themselves. It was fought tooth and nail for fifteen years before the Governor just administratively got the ball rolling through what they now call the Regional Fisheries Development Association program. You could insert 'Farm' in that as well. Is what happens is the individual fishermen, or farmers, vote to organize one, they all get taxed a little bit to keep it running, and they vote all the time on how to run their industry. The almond growers and the Florida citrus growers did this very thing. The benefit was that they got away from big corporate control and developed new consumer-friendly products and marketing that made these famous success stories. And it's no surprise that the nay-sayers of this kind of collaboration were never vindicated.
A Regional Farm Development Association would probably have made the whole county measure on GMOs unnecessary. They would have solved the problem for themselves in a democratic fashion. And they would have fleshed out the science of the matter better than the editors of the Mail Tribune I'm sure. And I could wax eloquent on how folks with some sort of soap-box don't like other folks getting on their own soap-box, especially democratically produced soap-boxes.
You sure won't see Rep. Richardson, Rep. Esquivel or Sen. Burntsugar, who represent my area, being on the right side of history in farm politics. They have voted against local control by farmers. Can you imagine how regressive Richardson's policies would be if he were elected governor in the fall? These guys need to take Southern Oregon Media Group's advice to 'Connect With Your Customers.' Obviously, with a 2 to 1 vote against their opinions, they have some serious catching up to do, if they indeed intend to. Can you say, thorn in our side. Europe is redrafting policies full bore with the recent voter rebellion over there. I guess that's the way it's going to have to be here too.
Enter the Citizens' Review Initiative on the GMO Measure here in Jackson County. A group of random citizens were selected by an Academic group, started by a National Science Foundation grant, to study the underlying parameters of the issue. No real recommendations were forthcoming out of the pre-vote process, but some good questions were. Some of these questions came out in a survey right before the vote. The survey was endorsed by the ever-popular Oregon Sec. of State, Kay Brown. Now, the Medford Mail Tribune is basically crying foul because the survey made people think. And it wasn't sent to everyone in the county either. What's wrong with cutting through the propaganda, mostly by the pro-GMO folks, and trying to make it a fair vote. Looks to me like it was a resounding success. This is what I was talking about with the Regional Development Association concept.
Since the big chemical/GMO seed company in Jackson County wouldn't sit down and talk with the local farmers, a ballot measure was the only way to go on short notice. Remember it was the organic farmers whose rights were being abridged by being contaminated by GMO pollen, not the other way around as was widely reported by the GMO industry. The organic farmers were having to plough under their crops, not the other way around.
We need more Citizens' Initiative Reviews, not less. The process had early success, and that's why it was used here. But I guess that's not a popular notion with the 1%. We probably need to use these tools to vet our politicians too and not rely on the local newspaper for their 'trusted advice.' The only thing the Mail Tribune, the County Administrator, the Chamber of Commerce and some of our local politicians failed to do was say 'trust me' with a German accent.Maybe that's the way the Swiss biotech giant here in Jackson Co., Syngenta, said it and these folks bought it. Wow.
Enter
First you had the Jackson County Administrator, Danny Jordan, very publicly saying that enforcement of a ban on using GM crop seeds would cost the County over $200,000 a year. He even threw in the scenario of the taxpayers having to dig up whole fields and treating the dirt to get rid of the chemicals and plant parts of GMOs. Where did that come from? Other counties in the country that have passed GMO bans don't experience any cost to the taxpayer. He did say in his public announcement of the dire costs of a ban, that it may possibly cost nothing. But the opponents of the ban focused entirely on costs to the taxpayer.
Nor did the Medford Mail Tribune balance his statements with his 'no cost' statements. The MT went so far as to write special articles that will go down in the annals of snark journalism for even thinking that a ban on GMOs would be appropriate. And of course the MT uncategorically recommended a 'no vote' on the measure to ban GMOs. What makes them experts in the field?
And then you had the Chamber of Commerce recommending a 'no vote' as well. That happened just after they hosted 'a presenter' at a special Chamber Board meeting. Chamber members were incensed at not being consulted on such a declaration. I've seen that a lot in Alaska where a blanket fishermen's group will issue press releases that favor the more affluent of their membership and harms many of the family fishermen and communities. Many of their 'member organizations' don't even have anything to do with fishing, but the total number of member groups are always cited. I've been writing about this for years.
In fact I just came back from North Carolina where I collaborated face to face with a prominent fisheries writer there. My question to her was, why did you quit? I all but stopped writing about this stuff as well. The answer is that it is a closed system and there is no talking reason to the folks who are manipulating it for their benefit. I've always gone by the maxim that you have to go around the problem. Armies do that all the time via 'flank attacks.' It's only logical because these folks get so entrenched and use partially interested allies to full advantage.
This has been obvious to students of how society works for a long time, so in about 1991 I proposed a trade association concept among Alaska fishermen to let them determine their fate for themselves. It was fought tooth and nail for fifteen years before the Governor just administratively got the ball rolling through what they now call the Regional Fisheries Development Association program. You could insert 'Farm' in that as well. Is what happens is the individual fishermen, or farmers, vote to organize one, they all get taxed a little bit to keep it running, and they vote all the time on how to run their industry. The almond growers and the Florida citrus growers did this very thing. The benefit was that they got away from big corporate control and developed new consumer-friendly products and marketing that made these famous success stories. And it's no surprise that the nay-sayers of this kind of collaboration were never vindicated.
A Regional Farm Development Association would probably have made the whole county measure on GMOs unnecessary. They would have solved the problem for themselves in a democratic fashion. And they would have fleshed out the science of the matter better than the editors of the Mail Tribune I'm sure. And I could wax eloquent on how folks with some sort of soap-box don't like other folks getting on their own soap-box, especially democratically produced soap-boxes.
You sure won't see Rep. Richardson, Rep. Esquivel or Sen. Burntsugar, who represent my area, being on the right side of history in farm politics. They have voted against local control by farmers. Can you imagine how regressive Richardson's policies would be if he were elected governor in the fall? These guys need to take Southern Oregon Media Group's advice to 'Connect With Your Customers.' Obviously, with a 2 to 1 vote against their opinions, they have some serious catching up to do, if they indeed intend to. Can you say, thorn in our side. Europe is redrafting policies full bore with the recent voter rebellion over there. I guess that's the way it's going to have to be here too.
Enter the Citizens' Review Initiative on the GMO Measure here in Jackson County. A group of random citizens were selected by an Academic group, started by a National Science Foundation grant, to study the underlying parameters of the issue. No real recommendations were forthcoming out of the pre-vote process, but some good questions were. Some of these questions came out in a survey right before the vote. The survey was endorsed by the ever-popular Oregon Sec. of State, Kay Brown. Now, the Medford Mail Tribune is basically crying foul because the survey made people think. And it wasn't sent to everyone in the county either. What's wrong with cutting through the propaganda, mostly by the pro-GMO folks, and trying to make it a fair vote. Looks to me like it was a resounding success. This is what I was talking about with the Regional Development Association concept.
Since the big chemical/GMO seed company in Jackson County wouldn't sit down and talk with the local farmers, a ballot measure was the only way to go on short notice. Remember it was the organic farmers whose rights were being abridged by being contaminated by GMO pollen, not the other way around as was widely reported by the GMO industry. The organic farmers were having to plough under their crops, not the other way around.
We need more Citizens' Initiative Reviews, not less. The process had early success, and that's why it was used here. But I guess that's not a popular notion with the 1%. We probably need to use these tools to vet our politicians too and not rely on the local newspaper for their 'trusted advice.' The only thing the Mail Tribune, the County Administrator, the Chamber of Commerce and some of our local politicians failed to do was say 'trust me' with a German accent.Maybe that's the way the Swiss biotech giant here in Jackson Co., Syngenta, said it and these folks bought it. Wow.
Enter
posted by Alaskacafe at 10:28 AM
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