Repeal Oregon’s “Monsanto Protection Act”
Sign the petition to send an email to Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek and Senate President Peter Courtney urging them to pass the Transgenic Contamination Prevention Bill. House Bill 4122 would give the right to local governments to protect non-GMO and organic farmers from contamination by GMO crops.
GMO cross-contamination in Oregon is not a hypothetical situation – it is a real and present danger. In 2014, GMO wheat that was never approved for commercial cultivation was found growing in E. Oregon, and that discovery caused Asian buyers to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. wheat exports. (1) The source of the illegal GMO wheat has never been determined. GMO bentgrass is now out of control and spreading across several regions of Oregon, costing millions of dollars in mitigation efforts. (2)(3) And a recent published study has shown that GMO alfalfa has also gone rogue and is now spreading throughout the Northwest unabated. (4)
It’s time to repeal Oregon’s Monsanto Protection Act and give communities the right to protect their farmers instead. Pass HB 4122!
This petition is now closed. End date: Feb 16, 2016 Signatures collected: 1,098Send an email to Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek and Senate President Peter Courtney
In Oregon, the 2013 Legislature passed Senate Bill 863 (also known as the Oregon Monsanto Protection Act) as part of Gov. John Kitzhaber’s “grand bargain,” pre-empting any local control of agricultural seed or product of seed. It stripped away local governments’ right to protect farmers growing traditional crops from contamination by genetically engineered crops. Thousands of Oregon farmers and consumers fought tirelessly to prevent the passing of SB 863, as House Speaker Tina Kotek can attest.
Our Family Farms Coalition, working with the Center for Food Safety and Friends of Family Farmers, has just filed the Transgenic Contamination Prevention Bill, House Bill 4122, with the help of Oregon Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene.
HB 4122 would give back to all local governments in Oregon the right to protect farmers from contamination by genetically engineered crops. The text of HB 4122 can be found HERE. Even Katy Coba, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, has admitted that Oregon has neither the expertise nor the resources to address issues of contamination by genetically modified organisms, so why should the state maintain sole control over GMOs?
Speaker Kotek deserves credit for sending HB 4122 to the House Consumer Protection Committee, but she needs to hear from all of us today that it’s no time to allow Monsanto and its allies in the Legislature to kill HB 4122. (Text by Genie Harden for The Register-Guard. Original article can be found HERE.)
References
1 Monsanto settles over GMO wheat found in Oregon: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2014/11/12/monsanto-settles-gmo-wheat-found-oregon/18937079/
2 Monsanto, Scotts Seek Approval for Golf Grass Gone Wild: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-06/monsanto-scotts-seek-approval-for-golf-grass-they-won-t-sell
3 Why makers of genetically engineered grass hope Oregonians have a short memory: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/01/why_makers_of_genetically_engi.html
4 Occurrence of Transgenic Feral Alfalfa (Medicago sativa subsp. sativa L.) in Alfalfa Seed Production Areas in the United States: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0143296
