The zealot that was our Democratic Club chair was now forwarding to all club members brief email attacks on our state senator Arnie Roblan, messages spread on the internet by special advocacy groups like Food Democracy Now, determined to thwart Monsanto Corporation’s attempts to force upon independent-minded farmers its genetically modified seeds.
Here is information (provided by Snopes.com) that you need to know to understand better the issue that caused such criticism of Roblan and the events that took place at Roblan’s town hall event May 4.
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On 26 March 2013, President Obama signed into law a bill passed by the House and Senate earlier that month known as the “Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013” to provide funding for various federal agencies through the end of the 2013 fiscal year. One of the provisions included in that bill in the section for “Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and related agencies” was Section 735, variously dubbed the “Farmer Assurance Provision” or the “‘Monsanto Protection Act,” an inclusion which reignited a clash between the agribusiness industry and food safety groups. The former maintain that the Farmer Assurance Provision prevents activists from manipulating the court system to force farmers to abandon or destroy genetically modified (GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) crops that have already received U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) safety approval; the latter assert that Congress kowtowed to big business by sneaking into an appropriations bill a provision that allows large biotech companies like Monsanto to do an end run around the court system and avoid legitimate legal challenges to the safety of their products.
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The provision directs the Secretary of Agriculture to grant temporary deregulation status to allow growers to continue the cultivation of biotech crops that had previously been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) while legal challenges to the safety of those crops are underway, and it prevents courts from interceding in the review process — a situation which critics contend unconstitutionally bars the court system from taking part in ensuring the safety of food products.
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Dozens of food and consumer groups opposed the provision on the grounds that it was unnecessary and undermined the judiciary’s authority to regulate the growing of genetically engineered crops.
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The provisions of this bill (including the “Monsanto Protection Act”) were originally to remain in effect for six months, until the end of the fiscal year on 30 September 2013. The bill was later extended to expire on 15 December 2013 (Mikkelson 1-3).
Work cited:
Mikkelson, Fred. “Monsanto Protection Act.” snopes.com, updated September 13, 2013. net. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/monsanto-protection-act/
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Fireworks were set off in Oregon when the state senate passed a bill (SB633) that opponents dubbed the “Oregon Monsanto Protection Act.”
“SB 633 appears to be in response to local efforts to protect farmers and consumers from genetically modified (GM) foods. …
“Efforts in Jackson County have led to a measure on the ballot for May 2014 that will let voters decide if they want to ban GM crops in the county, and people in Benton County have been working on a community rights initiative to protect the heritage and vegetable seed industry there. GMO Free Oregon has discussed putting forth a similar measure in Lane County. …
“Melissa Wischerath and Mary Beth Williams of the newly formed, Eugene-based Center for Sustainability Law are concerned about SB 633. Wischerath says the bill is based on corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) proposed legislation from 2007.
“Williams says a Monsanto attorney came to Oregon to testify for the bill. She says that the vague language in the bill that calls for regulation of seeds and “products of agricultural seed, flower seed, nursery seed and vegetable seed” to be done by the state could lead to local governments not being able to do simple things like dealing with invasive species and could ban county-funded local food initiatives. …” (Mortensen 1-2).
Work cited:
Mortensen, Camilla. “Will Oregon Protect Monsanto?” Eugene Weekly, May 16, 2013. Net. http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2013/05/16/will-oregon-protect-monsanto/
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A biased description of SB633 and why and how it came about is provided by Common Dreams.”
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Last week, SB 633, a bill that strips all local control of agricultural seed and seed production and replaces it with a “one size fits all” policy dictated by the state passed out of the Rural Communities and Economic Development committee by a vote of 3 to 2 in favor. SB 633, known as Oregon’s Monsanto Protection Act, earned the support of the committee Chair, Arnie Roblan (D-Coos Bay) whose office has cited the passage of Section 735, known as Monsanto Protection Act, of H.R. 933, as justification of the dangerous new seed preemption bill that is now awaiting a full vote on the Oregon Senate floor.
Under current Oregon law, local citizens have the right to make democratic decisions concerning local agricultural practices and Oregon’s Monsanto Protection Act is seen as a corporate handout to agribusiness to protect biotech seed and chemical monopolies like Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta from the growing number of American farmers and citizens who have become concerned about the flaws of genetically engineered crops and the undemocratic lobbying method these giant multinational companies use to deceptively garner growth in the marketplace.
"Barely two weeks after sneaking into U.S law, the Monsanto Protection Act is being cited as an example to strip Oregon’s family farmers of their basic democratic rights," said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now! "By siting Section 735, better known as the Monsanto Protection Act, as a reason to subvert the citizen-led ballot initiative process, Oregon Senators have proven that the Monsanto Protection Act is a part of a well-coordinated effort by Monsanto and the biotech industry to undermine simple protections from GMO crops that a growing number of farmers and citizens across the U.S. are demanding."
...
Oregon’s Monsanto Protection Act is a direct attempt to silence farmers critical of genetically engineered crops who are looking for a reasonable democratic solution to protect their organic and non-GMO seed supply from genetic contamination.
In an effort to protect local agriculture and farmer’s economic livelihoods, on January 2nd of this year, GMO-Free Jackson County, led by a local farmer, submitted nearly 6,500 signatures to get a ban on genetically engineered crops on the ballot. The initiative will appear on the ballot May 2014, if not sooner and Monsanto, Syngenta and other biotech seed companies are working behind the scenes to make sure that SB 633 strips Oregon residents of their right to make local agricultural decisions at the county level.
According to Oregon farmers, SB 633 is a thinly veiled attempt to silence the growing concern over genetically engineered foods and gut all county efforts to address the real problems that growing GMO crops can have on seed purity and the economic livelihoods of family farmers.
Last week Senator Roblan was joined by Herman Baerschiger (R-Grants Pass) and Betsy Close (R-Albany) in voting in favor of SB 633. The bill must now be assigned to a committee in the House and then be voted on by both chambers of the Oregon legislature.
This vote comes barely two weeks after Congress passed the Monsanto Protection Act and President Obama signed it into law, over the objections of more than 300,000 Food Democracy Now! members who signed a letter to Obama and Congress to the stop the provision from becoming law. Now in Oregon, state senators are hiding behind the precedent of the Monsanto Protection Act undermining efforts in Jackson County to pass a countywide ban on GMO crops, a ballot initiative that qualified for the May 2014 ballot (Food 1-3).
Work cited:
Food Democracy Now. “Monsanto Protection Act” Spreads to Oregon in New Bill Passed That Will Ban Local Control over Food and Farms.” Common Dreams, April 18, 2013. Net. https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/04/18/monsanto-protection-act-spreads-oregon-new-bill-passed-will-ban-local-control
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I was not aware of the federal legislation nor the proposed state legislation. I was seeing messages spread across the internet mostly by Food Democracy Now lambasting Arnie Roblan courtesy of the current Florence Area Democratic Club (FADC) chair. Here are two examples.
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Unfortunately. Senator Arnie Roblan (D-Coos Bay) and other senators in the Rural Communities and Economic Development committee are determined to do the bidding of biotech seed and chemical giants Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta by working to pass a law that pre-empts local county authority over seeds and seed production.
--- posted April 10
Already, Monsanto’s lobbyists are crawling through the Oregon capital trying to
round up votes before the truth can come out publicly that they’re working
overtime to undermine America’s basic democratic rights once again. But we
won't let them get away with it.
Ominously, the Monsanto Protection Act, Section 735 of the continuing
resolution, H.R. 933, that passed last month in Washington DC and prompted
endless controversy is now being cited as supporting evidence for the Oregon seed preemption bill.
In an email to an Oregon constituent from Senator Arnie Roblan (D-Coos Bay)
the bill’s chief sponsor and chair of the committee that the bill just passed out of, makes clear he’s doing the bidding of Monsanto and the biotech seed industry.
– posted April 19
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Arnie Roblan and the FADC had been close allies since 2004 when he ran for state representative. Both of us having been educators, he and I had a natural regard for each other. Over the years he frequently appeared before our club to provide information about legislative bills. I always wrote and sent synopses of his presentations to our club members, a practice that he appreciated. During election years I always commended him in letters I wrote to the local and Coos Bay newspaper editors. We had similar values. He valued all my efforts on his behalf; I appreciated how he served his constituents. The assertion by Food Democracy Now! that he was a creature of Monsanto was both offensive and absurd, and our clueless, zealot chair was enthusiastically promoting it.
We were to hold our next club meeting on May 4. When the zealot had replaced me as chair in January, I vowed to myself that I would not advise him how to do any aspect of the job. I would do so on request, but I wanted to respect his independence. I knew that the May 4 town hall meeting at the local library began at 1 p.m. That was the time that the library opened. I arrived about ten minutes early, and already a crowd was waiting in the hallway outside the library’s rooms. Roblan was also waiting. No chairs had been set up inside the room where he was to speak. I had to alert one of the librarian’s inside her office to unlock the door to where we were suppose to gather, and, hastily, I, the chair, and several other people arranged the chairs.
While we were doing this, one of the leaders of Citizens Democracy Watch, a very progressive group not a part of but an ally of the FADC, started putting up along the walls of the room very large signs attacking Monsanto and demanding that Roblan reverse himself. His facial expression indicated apprehension. We, the FADC, were the sponsors of the event. He hasn’t gotten the permission of the library to do this, I thought, or permission from us! I wanted to tear the signs down.
At most all of the town halls that the club had sponsored, I, the chair, had introduced the speaker and afterward chosen whom in the audience to recognize to ask questions. Our chair introduced Senator Roblan and then took a seat in the audience. Roblan had to select the questioners. A majority of the questions asked were in varying degrees hostile. He had nobody to step in to tone things down or to admonish. At least three people gave tutorials – each at least 5 minutes in length – information about GMOs and Monsanto Corporation as if Roblan had no clue about either. I would have stopped each person after 30 seconds with the reminder, “What is your question?” and if receiving push back, “People came here to here Seantor Roblan speak, not any one of us.” Senator Roblan was facing a tough crowd, and our chair, I was certain, was reveling in it.
I audio taped the meeting, so what I have written below is not based on memory.
On the issue of SB633 and Monsanto seeds Senator Roblan made these points.
“When I make a final decision, it is based on what I believe is the right thing to do for Oregonians.”
“When people actually talk to each other, and listen to each other, surprising things happen.”
SB 633 is about seeds, not GMOs, is about “who has the responsibility for deciding and making the statues and rules regarding the growing of different kinds of seeds” in Oregon.
The ballot measure sponsored by people in Jackson County would “preempt the use of any GMO seeds” there. “Not one county in the state of Oregon wants this responsibility.” They “believe it will bankrupt them” if passed. “We have another law in the state that is called Right to Farm.” It “gives farmers the rights that they need to do the common practices of being a farmer.”
He talked to scientists at Oregon State and Portland State and other people and asked, “Who has the expertise to make those kinds of decisions?” The answer he got was “Probably the best is the federal government: they have more scientists than anybody else. Next would be the Department of Agriculture; that’s part of their job.” Who has the expertise? Arnie was told, “Probably, right now, not many. It’s a fairly new industry.” The place that has the best chance of making good decisions … is the Department of Agriculture. “Now we need to fund them, which we haven’t done very well.” Woefully underfunded.
Two major industries looked at the bill and said, “Oh my gosh, they are going to start regulating our seeds, county by county, 36 counties?”
Nursery Associations: “We think we have genetically engineered plants that we grow and sell all over and we’re kind of concerned now what we’re going to do with this.”
Forest Industry: “We’re doing a lot of stuff now with our trees that are growing and … we don’t think that having this regulated” is good.
Obama just signed a bill that prevents some of this GMO from being regulated. “There is a lot of stuff happening on this issue. To have it decided county by county made absolutely no sense to me.”
“In the valley we have a penning system for most of our seed production that allows people to know within two or three miles who else is growing whatever, so that we can avoid the conflicts that happen.”
“If you do the science and pen so that they are away from each other, do other kinds of things to prevent it, you don’t get that problem.”
“With respect to the long-term viability of this agricultural industry, … I think it [SB633] is the right thing for our state to do. People can differ with that. I’ll gladly hear from other people who show me examples about where it’s been a problem.”
“When I get frustrated in elections and this kind of stuff, [it’s because] the same people who are really anti-bullying employ bullying techniques.”
A number of questions that were asked were about subjects other than GMO seeds: guns, education, coal trains, mental health, forestry, industrial farms. The following is representative of a greater amount of argumentation that occurred between critics in the audience and the Senator.
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GMO drift doesn’t stop at two-and-a-half miles.
Roblan: Monsanto has won few lawsuits about farmers using their seeds that drifted onto the farmers’ properties. “I understand the concerns … I think we are more frightened than we need to be.”
Scientists are being bought and sold by Monsanto. Cattle being fed chips of corn foreign to the bodies of the cattle that are laced with antibodies. Cattle should be grass-fed. We are poisoning ourselves. Monsanto is making trees that are resistant to bugs but are killing all the trees around them. We are in trouble. Our planet is in trouble.
Roblan: “I agree with a lot of what you are saying. I don’t agree with the indiscriminate spraying of pesticides. Most farmers out there are using the least amount that they can. ..[interruption] More pesticides may be coming into our water systems from our urban areas than ever come from our farms. [interruption] If we ban them, we have to be prepared to acknowledge that a whole lot of people in the world are going to die of starvation.
“But that’s not true.” Somebody else jumped in. “People farm for themselves in other countries. Monsanto and other companies took over their lands.”
Roblan: “I’ll get some other books to read on that one, but I will guarantee you right now if we only had organic farming and no pesticides in this world there would be a major loss of life in this world and poor people would be the ones that would take the biggest brunt of it.
[Somebody else spoke.] “The problem with Monsanto is that they prescribe the seed … that are not viable the next year. [voice became too soft to hear well] … The Department of Agriculture does not look at independent studies.” They look at Monsanto and similar GMO studies. The Department of Agriculture is headed up by a former Monsanto official. The reason Obama signed that bill was because it was on the tail-end of the appropriations bill to keep the government running. He didn’t want that in there. Obama said that if any changes are to happen in this country, it has to come from the grass roots. People have a right to organize and to say what they need. “SB633 undermines home rule. It is essentially favoring the farmers that want to plant GMO. It takes away the right completely of other farmers that [couldn’t make out what was said].” In Mendocino County in California they passed a GMO ban that was quite successful. “If you take the right of protest and the right of organizations and the right of making change away from the people who are not doing GMOs, then you are just cutting them off at the knees.”
Roblan: “I understand your position. I don’t necessarily agree. … There are other ways in which laws can be important. If you have drift of your pesticides on other people’s farms, … you will have to pay for that. I look at this group here. 40 years ago most of us would not be here. We wouldn’t live this long. If you look historically at our country to other countries, our food production and safety is better than most every country in the world. I understand people’s belief structures around organic [mumbled words]. I keep asking for studies that show me. Show me the studies that show it’s going to be a problem and not going to be a problem. I will continue to read the [?] from everyone.”
[Another person] Talking about seeds sounds very benign, but how those seeds are altered in a way to resist some of the pesticides, ”the only reason that is being done – we are killing ourselves, hurting ourselves … only to kill weeds.” The person continues a tutorial giving information about farmers’ use of stronger pesticides to eradicate more pesticide-resistant weeds, cross-pollination, drift, storage of unused chemicals, the European Union 2-year ban on pesticides that apparently are killing bees, the EPA looking at the effects on children’s brain development because of use of pesticides around schools. At this point several people in the audience declared that they wanted other people to have the opportunity to speak and ask questions.
Another person spoke.
You mentioned earlier that there is no science regarding GMOs.
Roblan: “No, there was science.”
Okay, you went to Oregon State. They didn’t know …
Roblan: “I said, they’re saying that the fears that people have are not founded enough in science. Because there is science that’s been done.”
Money going into the colleges is not supporting science. It’s not supporting the research and development. The governor is not supporting it. The federal government is not supporting it. All the money we suspend for growing our children are also growing our society now seems to be going to different places, mostly corporations.
Roblan: “I agree that corporations don’t pay what I think they should pay. … What I’m saying is, I want reputable science. So I don’t care if Monsanto does it, or if the University of Oregon does it, or whoever.” I want to see how they did it “and I take that same science and I can replicate it over here and I get the same results. If you can’t do that kind of science, then I don’t think it is real science. … So I don’t care if Monsanto does it, and I don’t care if the University of Oregon does it. For me, it’s show me the science. And then let’s make some decisions about it.
Another person, with a low voice, hard to decipher: “None of the science that they’re putting out there … [something about genetic change, “GMO stuff “]
Roblan: “One thing I will say about science. They don’t ever really have the final answer. … Their answer is, ‘Here’s the best we know now. Give us some more time and we’ll tell you the next thing is. I agree.
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I immediately left the room after the town hall had concluded. I was furious, not because I believed that accusations leveled at Monsanto were not true but because Senator Roblan had been accorded so little respect.
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