GE Seed Law Divides Farmers, Legislators(good read on GE debate)

[nosmokes]

original

GE Seed Law Divides Farmers, Legislators

BY JAMES JARDINE, Staff Writer
Saturday December 31, 2005



   
What's not to like about a new technology that helps farmers feed a sick and hungry world, enable a Vermont farmer to grow a disease-resistant, pest-resistant crop that produces more yield per acre while using less pesticide and less herbicide?

Plenty, if you ask organic farmers and advocacy groups like Rural Vermont.

According to them, pollen from the new GE crops drifts across fields and dusts organic crops, rendering them unsalable to purchasers of organic foods.

But to state Rep. Dick Lawrence, a former dairy farmer from Lyndonville, GE seeds are one tool that can help Vermont farmers survive and compete economically with farmers from other states.

Dexter Randall, a state representative from Troy, says GE seeds can ruin an organic farmer's efforts at preserving natural strains of heritage seeds.

As Randall sees it, under existing law, the injured farmer has no recourse against the manufacturer of these engineered seeds, but is forced by existing law to sue his neighbor.

Randall sees proposed legislation as helping protect farmers by shifting responsibility where it belongs - back onto the manufacturer of these new seeds.
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complete articlehere

[Gman]

1. That's an issue hungry for huge amounts of lobbyist dollars

Be interesting to see how much money GE along with Archer-Daniels-Midland and others spread around. Be even more interesting to see how legislators vote after the dollars are put out there. It they're successful in allowing suits against GE, how soon will Congress act to outlaw them?