Open space to become political battlefield

BOULDER – Natural and organic industry leaders Mark Retzloff and Steve Demos are among the GMO-Free Boulder supporters who will push to elect in November two new county commissioners who support their cause.

Supporters of GMO-Free Boulder, an advocacy group, want to ban genetically modified crops from open space owned by Boulder County and leased to farmers.

Boulder County’s three commissioners voted unanimously in December to allow some genetically modified crops to be grown on the land.

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Roundup Ready sugar beets and genetically modified corn will be allowed to be grown on about 16,000 acres of cropland leased by the county open space department to farmers. The farmers pay $1.6 million in lease fees to the county annually, Cindy Domenico, county commissioner, said at the time.

Since then, former commissioner Ben Pearlman stepped down to become county attorney. He was replaced by Deb Gardner, who will run to retain the seat. Commissioner Will Toor is term-limited and cannot run again, opening up a second seat. Domenico’s term runs through 2014.

Commissioner candidates are being asked if they would support a countywide vote by residents on the issue, said Mary VonBreck, a GMO-Free Boulder spokeswoman.

“We want to work with people on how they’ll go about implementing a policy,” Von Breck said. “It’s a platform issue, and we’re going to take it all the way to November.”

GMO-Free Boulder has not yet decided which candidates to support for the county commissioner election, and has not spent any money yet on campaigning, VonBreck said.

Industry leaders such as Retzloff, a founder of Alfalfa’s Market grocery store, and Demos, founder and former president of White Wave Inc. (Silk soy milk), are involved in the group.

“We’re going to spend a lot of time and be very supportive of the two spots that are coming up for Boulder County commissioner this fall to make sure we elect two commissioners that are opposing GMOs on open space,” Retzloff said.

Natural and organic industry companies are a large part of the regional economy, creating as much as $2.49 billion in estimated statewide economic impact, according to a December study done by the Business Research Division of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The study polled companies affiliated with Naturally Boulder, a trade group created in 2005 as an economic development initiative by the City of Boulder and the Boulder Economic Council. Naturally Boulder members are not necessarily affiliated with GMO-Free Boulder.

At issue for anti-GMO advocates is whether or not genetically modified foods – mainly corn, soybeans and sugar beets – are safe for human health. Biotechnology agricultural company Monsanto Co. (NYSE: MON) studies indicate that they are. St. Louis-based Monsanto owns an estimated 90 percent or so of all genetically modified seeds.

Anti-GMO advocates point to some studies that indicate that genetically modified crops and the ways they are grown are unsafe. For example, Monsanto’s glyphosphate-based herbicide is heavily applied to such crops in places like Brazil, causing undocumented health problems for people who live nearby, said Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist at The Organic Center, a Boulder-based trade group.

“I don’t see evidence that proves the kind of dire impacts that some people fear are occurring,” Benbrook said of genetically modified foods. “But I think it is fair to say that the public health impacts of both genetic modification of the plants themselves and the heightened reliance and use of … glyphospate, has not been researched as carefully as it should have been.”

Regardless of the health impacts, 71 percent of voters don’t want genetically modified crops grown on open space land in Boulder County, based on a survey done by GMO-Free Boulder.

Demos also is lending his voice to GMO-Free Boulder.

“The goal is to raise awareness in the community about an issue that affects us and everyone who follows us living in Boulder,” Demos said in an email. “It is our democratic responsibility to show up and voice our opinion.”

From a financial point of view, at least some farmers feel they make better returns on organic crops, Retzloff said. Many farmers in the region grow organic corn, silage and hay for Boulder-based Aurora Organic Dairy and Horizon Organic Dairy, for example. Others are in the process of getting their fields certified to grow organic crops.

Growing organic crops offers his farm better prices, but not as good of a yield, said Greg Spaur, owner of Spaur Bros. Farms LLC in Eaton.,