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Statehouses are the latest front in the international fight over regulating
genetically engineered plants, April 2005 by Eric Kelderman.

Stateline.org - infoZine - Seed companies, pharmaceutical makers and
biotechnology groups are pushing legislators to limit oversight of the
experimental crops designed to resist disease and insects or to produce
chemicals and enzymes for scientific research. But environmentalists and
food and beverage producers are urging caution, warning lawmakers of unknown
economic and health risks of genetically engineered crops that could
cross-pollinate with regular plants.

State lawmakers, so far, are siding mostly with biotechnology proponents.
Seven states -- Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and
Pennsylvania -- have enacted laws to prohibit counties and other local
governments from banning or regulating genetically enhanced seeds in their
jurisdictions. A similar bill, supported by the agri-business industry, is
awaiting action by the governor in Georgia. And like-minded measures are
being considered by legislatures in Arizona, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

At the same time, two states are considering new restrictions and penalties
designed to limit bioengineered crops. A bill in the Vermont Legislature
would make seed companies, instead of farmers, liable for damage from
genetically modified plants. And in Oregon, a bill has been introduced to
ban the outdoor growing of genetically engineered plants intended for
industrial or pharmaceutical uses.

While genetically engineered plants have long been controversial in Europe,
the issue erupted in the United States last year when voters in three
California counties banned high-tech crops within their borders. Those
actions have sparked a state-by-state effort to prevent local governments
from enacting similar prohibitions.

"We think local governments have enough problems without having to incur the
costs of regulating an industry monitored by three federal agencies," said
Ab Basu, who lobbies states for CropLife America, an association that
represents ag-business giants such as BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow
Agrosciences, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency already put
limits on genetically modified plants, and farmers do not want unnecessary
and overlapping local laws, he said.

Growers come down on both sides of the issue. Iowa state Rep. Sandy Greiner
(R), a farmer and supporter of her state's new seed law, said the measure
prevents a patchwork of varying regulations within the Hawkeye State. She
notes that states already have jurisdiction over other widely used
agricultural products, such as fertilizer and pesticides.

But Iowa state Rep. Mark Kuhn (D), also a farmer, said local governments
should have the ability to protect growers who worry about contamination
from genetically modified plants, especially farmers trying to meet the
standards for certified organic crops. Kuhn sponsored a failed amendment to
the Iowa bill that would have given counties the right to establish limited
zones prohibiting bioengineered plants.

Some opponents of the high-tech crops also want to preempt local
governments -- by imposing stricter rules against growing those plants. Rick
North, an advocate of the Oregon bill limiting genetically engineered plants
statewide, said that experimental crops would inevitably contaminate the
food supply if they were not properly controlled. "We don't want drugs ...
or industrial chemicals" in our food, said North, a spokesman for the Oregon
chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

That's a sentiment reflected in the attitudes of many major food and
beverage companies that must ensure the safety of their products to
consumers worldwide. Brewery giant Anheuser-Busch has threatened to stop
buying rice -- a common ingredient for some mass-produced beers -- from
Missouri farmers if the pharmaceutical company Ventria Bioscience is allowed
to plant an experimental variety of that crop in the Show Me State. "Because
Ventria's Pharma rice is not 'generally recognized as safe' ... it is not
appropriate for food consumption, and even if it were, Anheuser-Busch
believes that genetically modified rice should be segregated from
traditional rice varieties to give food manufacturers and consumers the
choice to use such rice," the company stated in written comments to the FDA.

Riceland Foods Inc., which markets rice, soybeans and wheat grown by roughly
9,000 farmers in five states, also opposes Ventria's experimental rice in
Missouri, as does the National Food Products Association, which is the
largest trade association serving the food and beverage industry in the
United States and worldwide.

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