Earlier this month, Sonoma County became the sixth county in California to successfully pass legislation banning GMO use in local agriculture….
While this was cause for celebration for some, others are worried about the effect that GMO-free zones will have on the food grown and the land around it…
The problem is, there is a lot of misinformation out there about what genetically modified really is and what it actually does.
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Kent Bradford, director of the Seed Biotechnology Center at UC Davis, has been involved in opposing the movement for GMO-free zones in both California and Oregon.
“GMO-free zones have very little to do with actual gene flow or ‘contamination.’ If you look at the language used in justifying these initiatives, it is often filled with factual errors and emotional characterizations…” he told Food Dive. “In fact, they are primarily a component of an orchestrated marketing campaign for organic foods and are intended to keep GMOs controversial and not accepted by some fraction of the consumer public.”
In Bradford’s opinion, maintaining fear of genetically modified crops is a way of increasing sales of organic products, and having GMO-free zones reinforces the idea that consumers should be afraid.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: What do GMO-free zones mean for farmers and food?
