An Urban's Rural View

Voting by mail, as we do in Oregon, is like taking an open-book exam: You can look up the answers. Better, actually, because the state sends out a detailed Voters' Pamphlet with all the answers provided.

Don't know any of the candidates for city council? The pamphlet has their biographies and campaign platforms. Don't understand a ballot measure? The pamphlet has the full language, the arguments on both sides and in many cases the assessment of a citizens' panel that examined the issue in depth.

And so, during my final days here before making the 7-day, 2,800-mile drive to our winter hideouts in West Virginia and Washington, D.C., I spent a few hours poring over the 143-page pamphlet and marking my ballot.

Having sounded off on GMO-labeling (example: http://tiny.cc/…) in the past, I was especially interested in whether the proponents of Measure 92 might have anything new to say that would make me reconsider my position.

They didn't.

They are, for one thing, pushing a one-state solution to a 50-state issue. M92 is another step toward a jumble of potentially conflicting state labeling standards, which would both confuse consumers and increase the price of food. If labeling is going to be required, it should be the same label across the U.S.

The label M92 proposes -- "Produced with Genetic Engineering" or "Partially Produced with Genetic Engineering" -- is both deceptive (many will mistake it for a warning) and uninformative. Which ingredients are GMO? What percentage of the product do they represent? This label wouldn't say.

The backers call themselves Oregon Right to Know, but a more accurate name would be Oregon Right to Know Something Misleading and Meaningless.

According to the pamphlet, a group of 20 citizens chosen at random spent three and a half days listening to voices on all sides of the issue. They then voted 11 to 9 against the measure.

M92, the no voters noted, has many exemptions and loopholes. "Thousands of good products would have to be labeled genetically engineered -- even if they're not. Thousands of other products would be exempt from being labeled -- even when they do contain or are produced with GMOs."

And while proponents of the measure minimize the economic impact of labeling, the 11 no's pointed out that "The costs of actual labeling are a tiny fraction of the costs of compliance and certification."

Legislatures in some New England states have enacted labeling laws, but voters in California, Washington and (12 years ago) Oregon, have rejected labeling. It would be a major victory for labeling advocates and a major defeat for industry if Oregon voters said yes to M92 this year.

Voters in Colorado also have a GMO-labeling initiative before them. But Politico says the real 2014 battle is in Oregon (http://tiny.cc/…), where opponents have now raised more than $5 million to wage their campaign, 10 times what the pro-labeling forces in Colorado have raised.

The anti-labeling team in Oregon, led by big seed makers, food processors and grocery chains, will still outspend their opponents. Monsanto just donated another $2.5 million to the no campaign (http://bit.ly/…), which the Oregonian says brings total donations on both sides to more than $10 million.

Yet a recent poll indicates it will take a comeback for the anti-labeling side to prevail. The poll (http://tiny.cc/…), conducted by Oregon Public Broadcasting, shows voters leaning yes on M92 by a 49%-to-44% margin, with 7% undecided.

In the same poll, 52% of Oregonians said they expect the state "will experience a major earthquake in my lifetime." They were referring to real earthquakes, not metaphorical ones, but if M92 passes, the tectonic plates under the food and agriculture industries will crash and rumble mightily indeed.

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

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