April 10, 2003

The Vermont Senate yesterday approved a bill that would require the labeling and registration of genetically modified seeds sold to Vermont farmers, reports the Associated Press.

The bill passed after nearly three years of intense lobbying by the state's organic farming community and equally vociferous opposition from the nation's seed manufacturers.

"What this does is give farmers all of the information about their crops that they need to make an informed decision," said S'ra DeSantis, an organic farmer with the Intervale Foundation in Burlington. "We're not trying to make the choices for them."

The measure is the first of its kind in the country to gain passage from even one chamber of a state legislature, according to CropLife America, an industry trade group that lobbied against the bill's passage.

Noting that there are 65 measures aimed at limiting or regulating agricultural biotechnology in the country's state houses, Ab Basu, CropLife's senior director for government relations, said the industry was troubled by attempts to further interfere with the relationship between farmers and their suppliers.

"We strongly support stringent regulatory approval of all agricultural biotechnology," he said from CropLife's Washington, D.C., offices.

Regulatory oversight is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, Basu said.

Genetic modification would join a list of seeds that already require labeling and registration before they are sold to Vermont farmers, said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Jeanette White, D-Windham. Seeds that have been treated with pesticides, herbicides and rodent-controlling substances must be labeled and registered, writes AP.

Vermont had 253 organic farmers and processors tilling 24,351 acres at the end of 2002, according to the Northeastern Organic Farmers Association. Organic farming generated about $27.8 million in sales through the end of last year.

The state has a total of 6,700 farmers using 1.34 million acres, according to the state Department of Agriculture. The total agricultural output for the state totals $508 million.

"Farmers are increasingly concerned with genetically engineered crops," said Brian Tokar with the Plainfield-based Institute for Social Ecology's Biotechnology Project. "People are not always aware of what they are growing."

Echoing that sentiment, 70 towns have passed some sort of resolution regarding genetically engineered organisms.

The effort to mandate the labeling and registration of genetically modified seeds is not shared by the entire farming community. The Vermont Farm Bureau - which represents the bulk of the state farmers - did not endorse the measure because "it really doesn't do anything the seed manufacturers don't already do," said Arthur Menut, a lobbyist for the bureau.

He noted that the seed manufacturers and the state Department of Agriculture already have a self-reporting and registration system in place that accomplishes much of what the Senate measure would achieve, according to AP.