TAKE ACTION:  VOTE POSSIBLE TODAY OR TUESDAY! LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE 207-287-1400 and SENATOR 207-287-1540

The vote in the house on LD1650 may happen this evening or Tuesday!  Please take a moment and leave a message for your Representative and Senator at the Statehouse.  Please leave your name and address in the message and ask for a response and urge her to support LD 1650 with Rep Pratt's reporting amendment included..   The reporting requirement is an important addition to the bill that promotes informed decision making. 

Click Here to Find Your Representative

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Don't be bullied by Biotech's threats!!! Support informed policy making!!! Support a reporting requirement as part of LD1650!!!

After a year of negotiations, compromises and hard work, the Agriculture Committee has finally voted An Act to Amend the Laws Concerning Genetically Engineered Plant and Seeds out of Committee and to the Floor of the House of Representatives. It will probably be voted on early next week, so take action now and tell your legislators to support the minority report.

TAKE ACTION

The final  bill does some important things to protect Maine farmers, but still doesn't go far enough to provide our policymakers with all the information they need to make good decisions that effect the future of agriculture in Maine. An amendment will be offered on the House floor that will add a measure to the bill that would require manufacturers of genetically engineered seed to submit an annual report to the Maine Department of Agriculture giving the total number of potential acres that could be planted in each type of genetically engineered crop. This would allow the Department of Agriculture to track the use of genetically engineered crops, see trends in their use, and be alerted to new crops coming into the state.

This seems like a simple thing: one number, once a year, to allow policymakers to make better informed decisions. Why wouldn't policymakers want this information? Why wouldn't policymakers want to make informed decisions? The biotechnology industry, along with many industrial agriculture sectors in the state are afraid that if the state requires seed manufacturers to report that total annual sales, the companies will pull their products from the state. Using this argument, they effectively removed the reporting requirement from the bill at the last minute. But we can put it back!!! Contact your legislators now and tell them a reporting requirement is not too much to ask.

Paradoxically, this argument about the burden for the company and the threat of their abandonment of the state was used when the Board of Pesticide Control was making regulations for Bt corn. Now that those regulations are in place, do we see the industry withdrawing from the state? No!! On the contrary, Monsanto has just submitted a new application to the BPC to register two additional Bt corn products. Are they threatened by the weak regulations put in place? NO!!! Should we let this threat prevent us from getting appropriate information for our policy decisions to be based on? NO!!! Tell your legislators to support the LD1650 with Rep Pratt's reporting amendment. Lets make informed decisions. Lets pass a reporting requirement.

What would LD 1650 do?

• It will bring Maine's definitions of genetic engineering up to date with international law.

• It will establish the right of Maine farmers to be heard in a court located in Maine if they are sued by a seed manufacturer for patent violation as long as they don't have a current contract with that company.

• It prevents farmers from being sued for patent violation if they have only a minimal presence of engineered genetic material in their corps, or if they didn't intend for it to be there.

• It directs the Maine Department of Agriculture to establish Best Management Practices for the use of Genetically Engineered Crops.

• The amendment would add to the above a reporting requirement for the seed manufacturers to submit annual total potential acreage of all genetically engineered crops. These totals would be public information, but the individual numbers that the companies submit would be confidential.

Take action now to tell your legislators to support the  LD 1650 with the reporting requirement amendment.
For more information please email Logan Perkins, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or call 207-615-5158 or 207-692-2571

If your browser can't handle urls.  Please visit: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1221/t/6143/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=23787 to take action.

11/14/2007

Last month, researchers funded by the National Science Foundation published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences providing the first documented evidence that toxins from genetically modified corn may get into streams and harm insects that are an essential food for fish.

The corn is known as BT corn, and it is designed to manufacture a toxin that provides protection against agricultural pests -- essentially, the plant that grows from BT corn seed is a pesticide. The seed is manufactured by a number of large biotechnology companies, and up until last summer, growing BT corn was prohibited in Maine.

But a group of dairy farmers in the state who wanted to grow the corn to feed their cows made the case that BT corn can be grown more cheaply than conventional corn and thus offered them competitive advantages -- advantages already enjoyed by farmers in other states where the corn wasn't prohibited.

They pressed their case with the state's Board of Pesticides Control, which was the agency responsible for permitting the corn's planting because it is considered a pesticide. Their case was met with resistance by the state's growing number of organic dairy farmers, who asserted that pollen drifting from the genetically modified corn would contaminate organic corn used for feed, jeopardizing essential organic certification for their operations.

The board made a Solomon's judgment in July and declared it would permit BT corn to be planted in the state -- but only under a set of strict rules to be devised by late this year designed to protect organic farmers.

But while they were working on devising those rules this fall, the study about BT corn and caddisflies was released.

The data in the study is worrisome enough that the board, which was due to discuss the new rules later this week, should reverse course and reconsider its permitting of BT corn use in Maine.

When the board first considered the request for permission to plant BT corn, the major issue of contention was the genetic contamination of organic corn by genetically modified corn. That's because the EPA had previously performed tests to determine the corn's effect on water resources -- and found no significant effects.

But those EPA tests were problematic -- they didn't look at insects more closely related to the ones the BT corn's pesticide targeted. So EPA's researchers potentially missed an entire biological community that could be effected by the corn. That's what the most recent study looked at. Where the EPA looked at the crustacean species known as Daphnia, the more recent study looked at caddisflies, one of the most important food sources for fish.

And what it found, according to the National Science Foundation, was that the corn's "plant parts are washing into local streams." BT corn pollen was also "being eaten by caddisflies." In laboratory tests, "consumption of BT corn byproducts increased the mortality and reduced the growth of caddisflies," and thus "the toxin in BT corn pollen and detritus can affect species of insects other than the targeted pest."

Maine's farmers are an important part of our state's economy, social fabric and our landscape. Giving them more of a competitive edge is something we should do -- if possible. But in this case, there's a competing value that's potentially at risk if BT corn is planted and damages our water resources. Maine's rivers and streams, the species that depend on them and the fishing they provide are an equally important part of our economy, social fabric and landscape. The introduction of a technology that benefits one, but threatens another, must be carefully weighed.

At the very least, the Board of Pesticides Control should revoke the BT corn permits until they can be reconsidered in light of further study.

We need to know the degree of toxicity posed by BT corn to caddisflies and other aquatic insects. We need to know how long the toxins persist in streams and how far the toxicity may travel once it gets into a stream. The University of Maine's Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research has strong staff expertise in stream ecology and would be ideally suited to pursue this work.

With Rights Come Responsibilities!

Take Action: Urge the Board of Pesticides to make strong rules for Bt corn

Come to the public hearing Friday Nov. 16 at 9:30 to at the Hampton Inn, Waterville.

Protect Maine Farmers is calling for supporters to Pack the Room for the Public Hearing.

In order to go against the chemical and biotechnology industries, who think they should have rights without responsibilities, the BPC needs to know that there is strong public support for regulations on Bt corn, and for assigning responsibilities to those companies and to the farmers who want to grow Bt corn.

Please come to the public hearing and tell the Board of Pesticides Control (BPC): "With Rights Come Responsibilities." If you are unable to attend Friday's hearing, click here to send written comments to the BPC. The BPC will be accepting public comments until Nov. 30. If you are coming, please come prepared to comment on the draft rules. You are welcome to mention in your testimony your opposition to the authorization for Bt corn, but please keep your comments focused on the draft rules.

The new study on Bt corn's effects on aquatic insects shows that there is much scientific work still to be done on Bt corn's impacts on farmers, environment and human health.     While this work is being done, we should be as cautious as possible in letting Bt corn loose in Maine.

Please Take Action: Urge the BPC to make strong rules for Bt corn

WERU Voices 11/13/07

Producer/host: Amy Browne

Topic:

In July Maine was the last state in the country to approve the use of Bt field corn.  Now organic gardeners and others who don’t want to grow genetically engineered corn are hoping some regulations can be put in place to decrease the likelihood of cross-contamination.   The Board of Pesticide control  will hold a public hearing on the issue on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 9:30a.m. at the Hampton Inn in Waterville.

We talk with Logan Perkins of “Protect Maine Farmers”, C.R. Lawn of Fedco Seeds, and Paul Schlein of the Maine Board of Pesticide Control.

FMI: www.protectmainefarmers.org ;  www.fedcoseeds.com ;  Maine Board of Pesticide Control: www.maine.gov/agriculture/pesticides Mailing address: 28 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0028, 207-287-2731 (24-hr answering service)