GMO Labeling | The right to know is also the right to farm

Corn Mother. Cristina M. Perez

Yes on
Colorado Prop 105

AN ACEQUIA FARMER EXPLAINS
SUPPORT FOR LABELING

Devon G. Peña | Las Colonias de San Pablo, CO and Seattle, WA
| October 10, 2014

I am a farmer in Colorado’s
San Luis Valley and I support Prop 105, our state’s citizen-initiated
referendum for the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods; also known as
GMOs for genetically modified organisms. In a democracy, citizens must have access
to information in order to make decisions affecting their quality of life. The
right to know is a basic right in a true democracy.

By logical and legal extension
of this basic principle we have a right to know what is in the food we eat and how
it is produced. The right to know about our food is already codified in the law
in the form of required nutritional labels and other information used by consumers
to make decisions, for e.g., about dietary restrictions involving consumption
of sodium, fats, and sugar or carbohydrates.

Indeed, the sale price of
any given grocery item is another part of the information a consumer has a
right to know. So, despite what the opponents are suggesting, Prop 105 is not asking
for the establishment of some new right and instead asks that the right to know
keep pace with changes and adapt to the presence of new technologies, shifting
cultural values, and legitimate social preferences.

Every farmer also has a
right to produce with heirloom seeds if she sees fit to do so. This should
occur without the farmer facing the real threat of contamination and genetic
damage caused by neighboring GMO crops. The right to know what is in our food is
in this manner also the right to farm in the customary manner and for many Latino
farmers in Colorado this is a matter of the survival of our cultural heritage
through the production and preservation of highly valued heirloom crops,
including unique varieties of native corn.

Colorado’s acequia corn
farmers call for the protection of our state’s unique cultural and biological
heritage. I am talking about the seed savers and plant breeders who work in one
of the great “Centers of Origin” for Zea
mays – maíz, maize, or corn.
Colorado’s San Luis Valley is part of the American Southwest and widely recognized
as a legitimate subregion of the Greater Mesoamerican Center of Origin (see Nabhan
2011).

Thus, a vote for Prop 105 is
also a vote for our state’s family farmers and especially those who are the
most vulnerable as stewards of our national agricultural heritage. Our Colorado
Latino farmers have developed unique varieties like the famous maíz de concho, a native white flint corn,
which we use to produces our famous adobe-oven roasted chicos de horno, which is itself a rare artisan food listed on the
Slow Food USA Ark of Taste. The genetic integrity of our maize is essential to
the future of our acequia farming way of life.

The Latino farmers of
Colorado own and manage more than 1 million acres of farm, open-range, and
forested lands in the state. We are among the oldest farmers in Colorado with
some families sustaining agricultural operations without interruption in the
same place for six or seven generations or since the 1840s when the San Luis
Valley was still part of New Mexico Territory.  We therefore have a bigger direct stake in the
outcome of the vote on Prop 105 than any corporation like Monsanto with no real
long-term ties or plans for our state’s future agricultural and local cultural sustainability.

I work as the manager of a
non-profit grassroots experiment station and acequia farm school on 184 acres
irrigated by the oldest water rights in the state, the historic San Luis
Peoples Ditch. The rural neighborhood surrounding the Peoples Ditch has four
Colorado Centennial Farms with family names like Gallegos, Ortega, Valdez, and
Atencio.

These are my neighbors and every
single one of us has a treasured collection of heirloom seeds, mostly of the
‘Three Sisters’ – corn, bean, and squash. These seeds are sowed every year and
irrigated with the pristine snowmelt water that runs through our celebrated
acequia irrigation networks. The State of Colorado recently acknowledged the
historic, ecological, and economic value of our acequia farms when it passed,
in 2009, the Colorado Acequia Recognition Law. The passage of this important
legislation speaks to the value of the endurance and resilience of the
Indo-Hispano acequia farming way of life.

Our Center of Origin
heirloom seed collections are an invaluable asset that merit protection. Colorado’s
Prop105 will help us move in the right direction by fulfilling the consumer’s
right to know while encouraging us to take additional steps toward sustainable
agriculture and food justice. One anticipated benefit of Prop 105 is that small
family farmers – like those in the San Luis Valley who grow organic produce and
livestock as part of multigenerational family farm communities – will have a
better opportunity to provide high quality heirloom crops for the broader
Colorado and national consuming public. The integrity and value of our
cherished heirloom varieties will be more secure as the market for GMO crops in
the rest of the Valley decreases.

We are already seeing a
transition to more locally grown and organically sourced crops and these are
also becoming more affordable as farm to table programs spread across the
entire nation including Colorado. This is a deep movement with strong roots in
Colorado’s Native American and Indo-Hispano First Foods.

As a Latino farmer I am also
concerned that the industry proponents shamelessly lie to the public about the
cost of food. I am concerned about cost since so many of my neighbors are limited-resource
low-income families. Many of them worry that the cost of food will continue to
increase and that GMO labeling will make food costs rise even faster. This is a
bold-faced lie.

Our heirloom white flint, drying under the sun, after over-night roast in adobe ovens.

The latest research on the
costs of GMO labeling by the Consumers
Union (CU) – a respected non-partisan organization – verifies that the actual
cost of GMO labeling to the average consumer is about $2.43 per year. I
mentioned this cost estimate to a young woman in San Luis, Colorado just the
other day. She quickly did the math in her head and responded: “Wow, that’s
just pennies a day. I can afford that…” and then without hesitation: “Let’s do
it!”

If a low-income, working single
mother of three in rural Colorado is willing to do her part to pay for GMO
labeling, are you?

We can put to rest the claim
that implementing a new GMO labeling requirement will be too costly. Consumers
need to know about the CU study to avoid being duped by the scaremongering
trumpeted by corporate opponents of Prop 105. The cost of labeling is not a
significant inflationary factor in the cost of food.

So I ask the support of my fellow
Colorado Latina and Latino voters: Please vote “Yes” on Prop 105. The future of
our children, and our land, is in our hands.