Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
Can GMO crops and organic farming live happily ever after?
Last year in Boulder County, the question of whether or not to allow genetically modified sugar beets to be grown on land owned by the county was hotly debated. Real hotly. (Like, hundreds of people showing up at public meetings that stretched until 2 a.m.)
So far, the county hasn’t decided what to do. In the meantime, staffers are working hard to even figure out what sustainable agriculture means. This weekend, in an effort to try and figure out just what the definition of “sustainable agriculture” is, the county hosted a community meeting, where a married couple from California took the stage.
An odd couple: she is a crop geneticist, and he’s an organic farmer. And rather than the either-or conversation that normally goes on about GMOs and organic farming, this couple — Pamela Ronald and Raoul Admanchak — say the two can go hand-in-hand.
True, the idea of growing genetically-modified sugar beets organically doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because sugar beets are genetically modified to resist certain herbicides. So, if you’re not using a weed killer, you can hardly care if your crops are resistant to it.
But in the bigger picture, the couple argue that the two things are not mutually exclusive. That’s because some GMO crops can be made to be resistant to drought — or flooding — and create higher yields, which could be key as the globe continues to warm and population continues to grow.
Read more about the local presentation by Adamchak and Ronald at www.dailycamera.com. Read about the couple’s book, “Tomorrow’s Table,” at Ronald’s blog, or check out a video of a presentation given by the two after the jump. Read more
GMO beet debate will go on — and on, and on, and on…
A big old pile of sugar beets. About 57 percent of all domestic sugar in the United States comes from these gnarly looking veggies. This year, about 95 percent of all sugar beets grown in the country are genetically modified.
With just a few minutes to spare until midnight, the Boulder County Board of Commissioners wrapped up a seven-hour-long public meeting on whether to allow GMO sugar beets on publicly owned farm land… by unanimously deciding not to decide.
Instead, the commissioners asked county staffers to begin working on a plan for how to deal with all types of genetically modified crops.
In 2003, a different set of commissioners voted to allow GMO corn on county open space land leased to farmers, but stipulated that each new genetically modified crop would need new permission. This means that when farmers asked to grow GMO sugar beets last December, the request ate up hours and hours of staff time and triggered three public meetings that drew hundreds of locals.
And even if the beet question was put to bed Tuesday, herbicide-resistant wheat and drought-resistant corn are just around the corner, waiting to pull the county back into another long debate.
“We do not want to be in a position of doing hand-to-hand combat about every GMO seed,” said Commissioner Will Toor at Tuesday’s public hearing.
Last night’s decision by the commissioners to create a larger plan could save time in the future, but for now, it means that there’s no end in sight. (Last time the county debated GMO corn, it took nearly three years to get a decision.)
Read more about Tuesday’s meeting at DailyCamera.com, or peruse the county’s extensive list of resources on the Parks and Open Space Department’s Web site.
