Californians Prepare to Protect
Local Control of Food & Farming

A legislative showdown to protect local control of food and farming is underway. Two California bills (AB1508 and SB1056) introduced to strip local regulation of food crops will be taken up in the 2006 legislative session. It is up to all of us to make certain we retain democratic rights allowing communities to create a sustainable vision for our food supply.

Since 2004, three California counties and two cities passed ordinances that restrict the growing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In response, agribusiness corporations and their affiliated associations have been promoting legislation prohibiting local control of seeds and plants. Thus far, seventeen state legislatures, including California, have introduced bills stripping local control of food and farming. The nearly identical language used in each of the bills illustrates a systematic and ordered approach to stifling community decision-making. California's bills contain some of the broadest and most sweeping preemptive language ever written in the Legislature.

What will such preemption laws do to local control? According to Tom Campbell, director of the California Department of Finance, "state preemption laws can do two things. They can overturn the will of the people in the event an initiative has passed, and they can prevent the introduction of laws on the same subject from being introduced." Preemption at the state level is industry's trump card used to remove communities' rights to enact stronger laws at the local level.

Counties and cities in California are not alone in our choices to grow foods free of biological tinkering. Across the country and around the world, local communities, cities and regions are addressing issues such as food security, public health and justice. Croatia, eleven provinces in Poland, New South Wales, San Marcos Sierras, and parts of Costa Rica are a few examples where authorities have restricted the growing of genetically modified foods due to citizen disdain.

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to James Madison in which he stated, "I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people, and if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them." That critical power is now being challenged. Please voice your opposition to SB1056 and AB1508. These bills:

• Undermine local government authority on issues of health, safety, and welfare and threaten participatory democracy.
• Allow agribusiness corporations to run roughshod over the desires of the people and local government.
• Threaten community rights to determine what seeds will be grown in their local soils.

To voice your opposition and stay updated on the progress of AB1508 and SB1056 please go to www.calgefree.org/preemption.shtml. These bills do not represent the freedoms our country was founded upon.

Additional Resources:

1. Contact Your Legislator: www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
   
   
2. "Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers" (2005): Report documents Monsanto's lawsuits against American farmers. Center for Food Safety, www.centerforfoodsafety.org/
   Monsantovsusfarmersreport.cfm
   
   
3. Toolkit on Fighting Preemptive Legislation in Your State, By Environmental Commons, www.environmentalcommons.org/
   local-control-toolkit.pdf
   
   
4. "Gone to Seed," Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/
   genetic_engineering/gone-to-seed.html