GMO ban in Jackson Countuy Oregon: a decade later

In 2014, Jackson County voters banned the cultivation of genetically modified crops in the county. It was a landslide victory, 66-33.

Nearly everyone I know voted for it. 

I voted against it.

During the campaign and its aftermath voters heard some farmers and gardeners express fear of contamination from Frankenstein-weird crops growing around them, perhaps with pollen blowing in from a neighbor. Elise Higley, a Jackson County farmer and leader of the group urging the ban, said: 

Family farmers should not have to live in fear that our farms will be contaminated by genetically engineered crops

The argument in favor of the ban sounded a lot like the fear expressed by anti-vaxxers during Covid. 

  -- The science was new and might be dangerous.  

  -- Changing genes to make something new is profoundly unnatural. 

  -- It was a plot by billionaires and corporations to dominate the little guy, so resist. 

  -- People who were vaccinated shed vaccination molecules, so they are dangerous to others. 

  -- Natural is healthier.

My sense at the time was that this was an unnecessary concern. Humans have been modifying crops with seed selection and hybridization since the beginning of agriculture, and now scientists are looking at genes to do it. I felt about GMO crops the way I felt, and feel, about vaccinations, that it is useful science. People want hardier, bigger, more drought-resistant and disease-resistant crops. Healthier plants mean less overall use of pesticides and herbicides --  a positive outcome. Vaccinations mean overall less medicine. Here is how we changed corn from its natural start:

Here is watermelon, captured in a still life painting by Giovanni Stanchi 350 years ago:

In the GMO debate there was consensus from both the city-dwelling, anti-Monsanto, let's-everybody-cheer-for-organic-food left, and the suspicious-of-science right.  But the group that carried the vote to a landslide came from the places in the county that vote Democratic. Not rural areas.

All this came to mind this week when the farmer who grows alfalfa on my farm found some puncture vine in his newly planted field of alfalfa. Newly planted alfalfa looks like this.

Alfalfa is a protein-rich food widely used as livestock feed. It grows rapidly. In Southern Oregon it can be cut three or sometimes four times a year and put into bales.

I have mentioned puncture vine before -- a nasty plant spread by seed that stick to tires. It grows quickly and lays flat on the ground. It is hard to notice, and then it grows and goes to seed. Can you see it next to his hand and distinguish it from the alfalfa? No? It's hard to see, which is my point.

Here it is, held by my grandnephew Liam Flenniken, who is doing a great job helping me this summer. He pulled it carefully, so as not to dislodge the sharp and prickly seeds. We carefully put the undisturbed plant into a big plastic bag to put in the garbage.

The connection between the GMO election, the alfalfa crop, and this weed is that this alfalfa, as per the local law, is from non-GMO alfalfa seed. There is one effective way to kill the puncture vine and other weeds without killing the alfalfa: planting GMO alfalfa seeds that are immune to the herbicide glyphosate. The farmer could spray the herbicide onto the field, and it would kill the puncture vine and other weeds but leave the alfalfa. But he can't do that, not in Jackson County.

I understand a person wanting to choose what plants they grow on their farm or garden. But I consider the Jackson County decision to forbid everyone from growing GMO plants to be parallel to a decision to forbid anyone in Jackson County from vaccinating their children for measles, polio, or anything else. 

My sense is that people who voted for the GMO ban made an easy, sentimental decision. The ban didn't affect them. It stopped other people. People who knew little about weed control in a farm context had an idea that it would a good thing if local organic farmers could say that the county is a haven for "natural" food, and it would be helpful to some farmers if they could say their crops came from a non-GMO county. It was an easy vote for well-intentioned people who have never set foot in an alfalfa field. 

Democrats wonder why they do very poorly in rural America, and why people in precincts like this one feel picked on by people who don't understand their lives. 

I realize I am an outlier here. Most of my local readers voted yes. It was an easy vote mostly affecting others. A gesture.

But there were victims to that vote, and unintended consequences. What kind of consequences? Well, Donald Trump is president because of massive majorities in farm districts, that's one. 

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