By Donna Westfall – November 14, 2016 – On November 8th, Sonoma County became the sixth California county to ban GMOs by a 54.1% vote, joining Santa Cruz, Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity and Marin.  The ban’s passage creates a 13,734-square-mile zone where genetically engineered plants cannot be grown, the largest such area in the United States.

Genetically modified crops have been under attack more and more because of:

• the effects of GMO’s is not fully understood on human health
• GMO’s cross pollinate and contaminate other crops
• They actually increase herbicide use
• Too little government oversight
• Independent research is attacked and suppressed
• GMO’s harm the environment including birds,  amphibians, marine ecosystems, and soil organisms.
• Sold as feeding a hungry world, in reality they do not increase yields
• Biotech companies use “tobacco science” to support their conclusions. Industry-funded research is designed to avoid finding problems, and adverse findings are distorted or denied thus allowing the companies to claim “safety” for their products.

The race between two women, Lynda Hopkins, an organic farmer (small business owner, mother, author and former newspaper journalist). and former state Sen. Noreen Evans for the District Five Board of Supervisors seat was won by Mrs. Hopkins.  The BOS will be majority-female for the first time in history. She faces many of the same issues faced by our local BOS in Del Norte County. Mrs. Hopkins had the support of many of the farmers and those in the wine industry that were against GMO’s.

Farmers currently growing GMO’s  will be able to continue growing for the current season as a grace period before the ban kicks in. And, if they purchased seeds for the following year, they will be allowed to plant and grow those too.

The top two GMO crops currently raised in the US are corn and soybeans.  However, cotton, potato, papaya, squash, canola, alfalfa and sugarbeets are also GMO crops grown in the US.  Apples were recently approved that won’t brown along with bruise-free potatoes.

GMO crops were first planted into U.S. soil in 1996, their production has increased dramatically. More than 90% of all soybean cotton and corn acreage in the U.S. is used to grow genetically engineered crops.

By the time all the known residual problems to the human body become quantified, many people will have suffered needlessly.  This is an insidious industry practice found not only in GMO’s but also in the fluoridation scheme.  And that is to state something is safe when thorough testing has never been completed. And the biotech  industry that is so proud of their GMO creations are fighting vigorously to make sure products containing GMO’s are not properly labeled.

How do you feel about being part of the human experiment?