Jackson County's Election is Over, GMO Debate is Not

Last week Oregon’s Jackson County citizens passed the Ballot Measure banning the growing and cultivating of genetically engineered crops in that county.

Oregon Farm Bureau Government Affairs Associate Ian Tolleson says moving forward now — there are more questions than answers.

Tolleson: “So that is another thing about why we don’t know what our next step is because the county does not know how it will enforce it. The ordinance says you have 12 months to clear up any GMOs crops. So that date is probably going to be when the ballot is certified which still hasn’t happened it. The county will have to create some bureaucracy of how to deal with it because they do not have a county department of ag. So they will have to figure that out what that looks like and that will have budget implications which Jackson County — a lot of counties around Oregon — just don’t have a lot of money. So they will have to figure that out. There is a lot of things we just don’t know.”

Tolleson says the lack of science in this campaign reminds him of the recent Portland’s city measure proposing adding fluoride to the city’s drinking water which failed — another example of emotion and ideology trumping science.

Tolleson: “In both of these insistences in Oregon unfortunately because it is emotion and disregard science which is really to bad.”