Dear Editor:
Ventria Bioscience of Sacramento wants approval by April 12 to grow California’s first genetically modified (GM) crop, rice that contains a drug.
Rice is a staple food of California and one of our major exports. Repeatedly, GM plants have proven to contaminate conventional and organic crops:
1. The USDA tested 118,000 corn samples and found 9% contamination by Starlink, a GM corn for animal consumption.
2. Monsanto Corp. GM Canola contaminated the seed that Canadian Canola farmer Percy Schmeiser spent 50 years developing and cultivating.
3. In Nebraska, pharmaceutical corn containing ProdiGene’s pig diarrhea vaccine contaminated tons of soybeans. The contaminated soy and corn were burned.
We don’t need these disasters in California. US organic food and beverage sales were $8 billion in 2000 and are expected to reach $20 billion by 2005. We can focus on that healthy, profitable market.
Please contact Governor Schwarzenegger, (916) 445-2841 and California Agriculture Secretary A. G. Kawamura, (916) 654-0462 to express concern.
Sincerely,
Leslie Lewis