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Cousin Betty who raises organic beef (Scottish Highland Cattle) up near Douglas City, wrote a letter to the editor regarding another corporate push to usurp local control.  Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) represent at once a tremendous dream of agricultural productivity and a tremendous substantiated risk to biodiversity and protection of the gene pools in food crops and the native ecology of wild places surrounding farms and ranches.  GMOs threaten the food purity of organic operations.  Since there is little short term profit in preservation and since American corporate interests are simply rapacious, it remains for local government to discern what is best for a community, its farmers and ranchers, and its environment.  Here is a link that can help you follow the issues and get involved in your neck of the woods.  And here, blogged with her permission, is what Betty Jo had to say about the corporate end-run around local democracy in California:

To: Editor, Trinity Journal
Re: CA Senate Bill 1056 - GMO and local control.

And so, like thieves in the night, legislators do the bidding of their corporate financial sponsors. An unrelated air quality bill (SB 1056) is "amended." The amendment changes the Food and Agriculture code to rob communities of their rights to protect their grass, forest and farmlands from contamination by Genetically Engineered seeds. Even labeling and notification of use are excluded by this bill from local control. Under this act local communities are not to be allowed to know when or where GMO seed is used. They are not to be allowed to choose.

Biotech Seed and Chemical companies must be coming desperate.
Despite ten years of unregulated, unfettered access to the nation’s
food supply they deliver no promised benefits, only widespread
contamination of seed stock with GMO drift and increased pollution of
agricultural land with herbicide. Of course they watch with concern as
a growing list of GMO related accidents and consequences draw the
attention of consumers around the world.

The Market for Organic (non-GMO) food increases at 20% per year.
It’s clear that when given a choice, people prefer feeding their
families healthy untainted food grown through sustainable agricultural
practices.

More and more important California wineries (Fetzer, Bonterra,
Frog’s Leap, Niebaum-Coppola, Frey, LaRocca, Coturri, Hallcrest) now
make their wines with organically grown grapes thereby proving that
pesticides, herbicides and Genetically Engineered seed and root stock
are not necessary to success in the wine industry.

A growing list of cities and counties across the country recognize
the value of protecting their agricultural products from the one-way
street of GMO contamination, and so have passed local ordinances
preserving this competitive advantage.

Alarmed, the GMO Seed and Chemical companies turn to their friends
in the legislatures to protect them from competition and liability.
From Vermont to California they seek such protection. If neither
notification of use nor labeling of GMO food is permitted even at the
local level, then it will be harder to trace harmful effects of GMO on
our food supply and impossible for anyone to choose an alternative. If
local control over GMO deployment is forbidden, then no County can
protect what is becoming an increasingly valuable advantage of
GMO-drift free agricultural lands. We’ll all be in the same GMO tainted
boat that less attentive communities now find themselves.

Trinity is a poor county. People live here because they love the
land. Farming is hard work. We do it because we care deeply about
producing healthy food for our family and community and because we
believe that conscientious land stewardship is an obligation we owe to
future generations. In all prudence this county has moved to protect
its agricultural land from cross contamination by Genetically
Engineered seed, thereby insuring some few acres of untainted ecosystem
and food production.

We are told that the purpose of this "amended" bill SB1056 is to
make "policy" less confusing for the seed companies and the farmers.
Certainly it will be less "confusing" for GMO seed companies to peddle
their products with no regulation, notification or liability. But wait!
Whose legislature is this anyway? Make no mistake. This bill is not
helpful to Trinity County, farmers, local agriculture, or citizens who
care about a healthy food supply and a healthy earth. That is why,
fearing public scrutiny, its proponents attempt to sneak it in through
a sleight of hand last minute amendment. Like thieves in the night…

Contact your representatives. Protect our rights and our county’s
agriculture by opposing this shameful shenanigan. This bill is wrong
and it should not pass.