GE-Free Sonoma County: CAFF Letter

CAFF Letter in Support of GE-Free Sonoma County

Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) has been acting to support the interests and well-being of family farmers for 30 years.

Letter from Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), Aug. 19, 2005, Sent early Sept. (Excerpts)

Dear Members and Supporters of CAFF:

No doubt many of you have seen political signs in the rural areas of Sonoma County declaring "Family Farmers United Against GMO Ban," with the name "Family Farmers Alliance" shown across the bottom. This has been the source of some confusion because of its resemblance to the name of our organization, Community Alliance with Family Farmers. We may never know if the name "Family Farmers Alliance" was deliberately chosen to confuse the issue or merely to add the cachet of farmer support to this problematic new technology. This letter is part of our effort to address the confusion.

Be assured that CAFF, one of California's oldest sustainable agriculture organizations, supports the Sonoma initiative for a 10-year moratorium on the introduction of Genetically Modified plant material into our local ecosystem. In fact, the Sonoma initiative is the only proposed county initiative on GMOs that CAFF has chosen to support, in large part because the drafters of the Sonoma proposal made a sincere effort to understand the needs of agriculture. For example, this new ordinance would allow the Board of Supervisors to permit the emergency introduction of a GMO plant in order to respond to a catastrophic threat, such as Pierce's Disease.

The proposed Sonoma ordinance does not address biotechnology products created under controlled laboratory conditions, such as medical and pharmaceutical products, because they do not pose the same threat as large-scale releases of novel agricultural crops into the environment. Rather, the proposed Sonoma ordinance specifically addresses agricultural GMOs because these present the greatest threat to the environment and human health.

During the upcoming campaign, you will be subjected to conflicting opinions, thoughts on the relevant science, and philosophies of life from one group or another. Where we at CAFF draw the line, however, is on the issue of contamination of the environment and our food supply, which experience to-date has shown to be fairly likely.

[CAFF then describes their experience supporting the Rice Producers of California in (successfully) opposing approval of GMO pharmaceutical rice, because of the problem of this rice contaminating other farms.]

Ventria next attempted to get approval to plant their pharmaceutical rice in Missouri. They received strong support for their plans from the American Farm Bureau and the biotech giant, Monsanto, whose worldwide headquarters are in St. Louis. However, these plans were opposed by 85% of Missouri rice farmers, who were concerned about their loss of market share and possible contamination of their crops and neighboring fields for years to come. Joining the farmers in their opposition was the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, which was concerned about the possible contamination of its product with pharmaceutical drugs brought into the beer-making process via the Ventria rice. These views were able to prevail in spite of strong political pressure brought by Monsanto, the Farm Bureau, and of the USDA.

The Missouri situation was best summed up by Russ Kraemer, president of the Missouri Farmer's Union: "The bottom line is that we must not allow Missouri to test unproven technology that threatens the livelihood of farmers, the health of consumers, and the state's food industry."

...

Once again Russ Kraemer, president of the Missouri Farmer's Union, had the last word: "We are changing the rules of nature with this technology, and in return, we have to make sure the rules that govern this technology will protect human health, the environment, and the markets of growers." We at CAFF agree that there is no need to subject our local environment and our own health to the consequences of improperly tested and potentially harmful GMOs. We also believe that organic and conventional farmers have a right to protect their crops from GMO drift. We believe that we have a right to grow and consume food uncontaminated by unintentional doses of pharmaceutical drugs.

CAFF is a member of the group working on the GMO moratorium. We were moved to write this letter after the signs in Sonoma County confused a large potion of our local membership regarding our position on the moratorium. We encourage you to become involved in the GE-Free campaign.

George R. Davis, Vice President CAFF
Julian Kayne, President, North Coast Chapter

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