California Food and Farming Policy Update

In This Issue:

• CAFF sponsored Farm to School Bill
• Legislation to protect farmers from GMO contamination
• GMO pre-emption amendments surface

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Farm to School and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) continue to dominate CAFF's public policy and legislative agenda in Sacramento. The Legislature is taking a one month summer recess, returning to the Capitol on August 15 for the final hectic four weeks of the 2005 legislative session. And legislation for Farm to School and GMOs will be CAFF's top legislative priorities, but for very different reasons.

CAFF-Sponsored Farm to School Bill Popular with Legislators

Encouraging the growth of Farm to School programs across the state is an important way to create new local markets for farmers. Legislators apparently agree, because AB 826 (Nava), the California Farm to School Child Nutrition Improvement Act, is garnering widespread bi-partisan support in the Legislature.

Co-sponsored by CAFF and the California Food and Justice Coalition (CFJC), AB 826 establishes a state-level Farm to School (F2S) program in the Department of Education to help farmers and school food service directors who want to create an F2S program in their area or help improve an existing program. The bill passed out of the often-contentious Assembly in June with a 77-2 vote and has steamed through two Senate policy committees with bi-partisan support. In fact, while the bill was still in the Assembly, the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Jeff Denham (R-Merced) and Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego), both signed on as Senate co-authors of the bill, giving the bill instant across-the-aisle credibility.

The bill's legislative support reflects the common-sense popularity of the Farm to School idea. Both rural and urban legislators appreciate the win-win opportunity F2S presents for their constituents: school kids get fresher, healthier and tastier fruits and vegetables and farmers get a new market that keeps more of the food dollar in their pocket.

AB 826 will be heard in Senate Appropriations Committee when the Legislature returns in August. It is not too early to let Governor Schwarzenegger know that you support AB 826 and want him to sign the bill when it reaches his desk.

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Legislation to Protect Farmers from GMO Contamination Stalls . . .

GMOs have proven to be a much more polarized issue in the Legislature than Farm to School. AB 984, introduced earlier this year by Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), takes on the thorny issue of GMO contamination of crops and the resulting liability for the contamination. Under AB 984, farmers whose crops are contaminated by GMO drift or co-mingling cannot be sued by biotech companies for illegal possession of their GMO product, and GMO manufacturers can be held liable for contamination by their product that results in economic loss for the farmer.

CAFF actively supported AB 984 in legislative hearings this spring, and the bill enjoyed important support from Rice Producers of California, California Certified Organic Farmers, and Rominger Brothers Farms among others. The bill passed its first hurdle in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, but ran into a brick wall of opposition in Assembly Agriculture Committee. When it was clear the bill did not have the votes to pass Ag Committee, Laird chose not to take it to a vote, meaning the bill can be heard again next January.

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Dramatic Fight over Attempts to Pre-empt Local GMO Decisions

Ever since Mendocino County voters rejected the multi-million dollar campaign of the ag biotech industry and passed their ballot initiative prohibiting the growing of GMO crops, the industry has eyed the Legislature as the place to land its knock-out punch. With ordinances also adopted in Marin and Trinity counties, and the all-important Sonoma County initiative on the November 2005 ballot, no one was surprised when amendments surfaced in late June declaring that the state has sole authority to adopt any rules on the use of agricultural seeds and pre-empting local voters or elected officials from adopting any rules to restrict the use of genetically modified organisms.

Still, the move was audacious. In a two-day period in the last week of June, two "gut and amends" - the practice of quickly stripping a bill of its contents and replacing it with entirely new language - emerged. First Assemblymen Simon Salinas (D-Salinas) and Juan Arambula (D-Fresno) amended their AB 1059 on the same day the bill was scheduled to be heard in Senate Agriculture Committee.

The blowback of opposition was quick, forceful and, to Salinas and Arambula, unexpected. CAFF and other opponents learned over the preceding weekend of the gut and amend gambit and by Monday had produced a letter with 60 organizations and individuals, including many CAFF members, opposing the bill. The state's three leading local government organizations, representing cities, counties, and rural counties, also opposed the bill as an attack on their democratic process. Salinas and Arambula pulled the bill from the committee before it was even heard.

The very next day, however, Senator Dean Florez (D-Shafter) proposed to amend the same language into his SB 1056. Even though the language had never even been made available to the public, Florez tried to gut and amend his bill on the fly in the Assembly Agriculture Committee. A long list of opponents, including CAFF and local governments, testified against the amendments, leading the committee chair, Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews (D-Tracy), to postpone the vote until the committee's next hearing.

That postponement amounted to a victory for opponents - at least for the time being - because the committee needed a rule waiver to hear the bill after the deadline for policy committee hearings. Indications at this time are that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez is not going to grant that waiver. The real opportunity for shenanigans, however, is in the last weeks of the session. CAFF and our allies will remain on alert for further amendments. (Sign up for Action Alerts to stay involved.)

While the political maneuvering is intriguing, the policy arguments against pre-emption are important. Legislatures, and courts for that matter, are more likely to entertain state pre-emption of local rules if a case can be made that a patchwork of local rules is not in the public interest and if the state has a comprehensive body of law that applies to that issue. While a reasonable person can argue that different county to county rules on GMOs are unwise, no one can argue that California has a thorough and consistent body of law on GMOs. In fact, California has no laws or regulations governing GMOs.

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