https://thefern.org/ag_insider/twenty-eight-states-make-illegal-counties-cities-pass-seed-laws/
[Just keep watching the clown show at the White House, pay no attention
to what is happening in the state legislatures or what ALEC is up to.]
Twenty-nine states make it illegal for counties and cities to pass seed
laws [UPDATE]
By Kristina Johnson, August 17, 2017
With little notice, more than two dozen state legislatures have passed
“seed-preemption laws” designed to block counties and cities from
adopting their own rules on the use of seeds, including bans on GMOs,
according to a list compiled by the American Seed Trade Association.
Opponents say that there’s nothing more fundamental than a seed, and
that now, in many parts of the country, decisions about what can be
grown have been taken out of local control and put solely in the hands
of the state.
“This bill should be viewed for what it is — a gag order on public
debate,” says Kristina Hubbard, director of advocacy and communications
at the Organic Seed Alliance, a national advocacy group, and a resident
of Montana, which along with Texas passed a seed-preemption bill this
year. “This thinly disguised attack on local democracy can be easily
traced to out-of-state, corporate interests that want to quash local
autonomy.”
Seed-preemption laws are part of a spate of legislative initiatives by
industrial agriculture, including ag-gag laws passed in several states
that legally prohibit outsiders from photographing farms, and
“right-to-farm” laws that make it easier to snuff out complaints about
animal welfare. The seed laws, critics say, are a related thrust meant
to protect the interests of agro-chemical companies.
Nearly every seed-preemption law in the country borrows language from a
2013 model bill drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC). The council is “a pay-to-play operation where corporations buy a
seat and a vote on ‘task forces’ to advance their legislative wish
lists,” essentially “voting as equals” with state legislators on bills,
according to The Center for Media and Democracy. ALEC’s corporate
members include the Koch brothers as well as some of the largest
seed-chemical companies — Monsanto, Bayer, and DuPont — which want to
make sure GMO bans, like those enacted in Jackson County, Oregon, and
Boulder County, Colorado, don’t become a trend.
Seed-preemption laws have been adopted in 29 states, including Oregon —
one of the world’s top five seed-producing regions — California, Iowa,
and Colorado, according to the American Seed Trade Association. In some
cases, the preemption is explicit, and in others implied and subject to
interpretation. In Oregon, the bill was greenlighted in 2014 after
Monsanto and Syngenta spent nearly $500,000 fighting a GMO ban in
Jackson County. Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, and Syngenta also spent more
than $6.9 million opposing anti-GMO rules in three Hawaiian counties,
and thousands more in campaign donations. (These companies are also
involved in mergers that, if approved, would create three
seed-agrochemical giants.)
Montana and Texas were the latest states to join the seed-preemption
club. Farming is the largest industry in Montana, and Texas is the
third-largest agricultural state in terms of production, behind
California and Iowa.
Language in the Texas version of the bill preempts not only local laws
that affect seeds but also local laws that deal with “cultivating plants
grown from seed.” In theory, that could extend to almost anything: what
kinds of manure or fertilizer can be used, or whether a county can limit
irrigation during a drought, says Judith McGeary, executive director of
the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. Along with other activists, her
organization was able to force an amendment to the Texas bill
guaranteeing the right to impose local water restrictions. Still, the
law’s wording remains uncomfortably open to interpretation, she says.
In both Montana and Texas, the laws passed with support from the state
chapter of the Farm Bureau Federation — the nation’s largest
farm-lobbying group — and other major ag groups, including the Montana
Stockgrowers Association and the Texas Seed Trade Alliance. In Texas,
DuPont and Dow Chemical also joined the fight, publicly registering
their support for the bill.
Echoing President Trump’s anti-regulatory rhetoric, preemption
proponents argue that, fundamentally, seed-preemption laws are about
cutting the red tape from around farmers’ throats. Supporters also
contend that counties and cities don’t have the expertise or the
resources to make sound scientific decisions about the safety or quality
of seeds.
“We don’t believe the locals have the science that the state of Texas
has,” said Jim Reaves, legislative director of the Texas Farm Bureau.
“So we think it’s better held in the state’s hands. It will basically
tell cities that if you have a problem with a certain seed, the state
can ban it, but you can’t.”
Other preemption proponents claim that local seed rules would simply get
too complicated, forcing growers to navigate conflicting laws in
different counties. “Many of us farm fields in more than one county,”
said Don Steinbeisser Jr., a Sidney, Montana, farmer who testified in
support of his state’s bill at a legislative hearing this spring.
“Having different rules in each county would make management a nightmare
and add costs to the crops that we simply do not need and cannot afford.”
But critics of preemption laws, including farmers (organic and
conventional) and some independent seed companies, are afraid of losing
their legislative rights. They claim something far more serious than a
single farmer’s crop is at stake.
“There is no looming threat that warrants forfeiting the independence of
local agricultural communities in the form of sweeping language that
eliminates all local authority governing one of our most valuable
national resources,” says Hubbard of the Organic Seed Alliance.
Organic farmers can lose their crop if it becomes contaminated with
genetically modified material. Even conventional farmers who rely on
exports to Asia, where GMOs are banned by some countries, face risks
from contamination. There are currently no plans to push for a GMO ban
anywhere in Texas or Montana, and neither state requires companies to
disclose the use of GMOs. (In Montana, at least, Gov. Steve Bullock, a
Democrat, added an amendment to the preemption bill when he signed it,
preserving the right of local governments to require that farmers notify
their neighbors if they’re planting GMO seeds.) Yet critics of the
preemption laws fear that they tie the hands of local governments, which
will make it harder for communities to respond to problems in the future.
Still, the fight isn’t just about GMOs, says Judith McGeary, noting that
seeds coated with neonicotinoids — a class of pesticides linked to
colony collapse disorder in bees — are also at issue. Under the Texas
bill, a local government can’t ban neonic seeds in order to protect
pollinator insects, and in the current political climate, it’s hard to
imagine that such a ban would happen on the state level.
“We have an extremely large state with an incredible diversity of
agricultural practices and ecological conditions, and you’ve now hobbled
any ability to address a problem that’s found in one local area,” says
McGeary. “Until it’s a big enough issue for a state of 23 million to pay
attention to through the state legislature, nothing is going to happen,”
she says.