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MARKETING ADVANTAGES OF A GMO BAN IN LAKE COUNTY |
By Philip Murphy
Lake County has unique geographical and climactic conditions that currently help market our agricultural products such as wine grapes, pears and walnuts. The local wine grape industry continues to ascend within California in terms of acreage, quality and price due in large part to the development of a marketing distinction between Lake County and other less favorable growing regions. Last year our wine grape growers received the third highest average price topped only by Sonoma and Napa, proof that cultivating a distinctive marketing niche can yield substantial rewards for local growers and vintners. As was clearly demonstrated during the campaign for a GMO ban in Mendocino County, the contamination of any world class wine grape growing region with genetically engineered grape vines will result in significant market share loss in the European Union countries and Japan. Public rejection of GMO crops and the products made from them is a fact in these vitally important export marketplaces. Wine grape growers and vintners in Mendocino County from Fetzer on down to the smallest family vineyard understood this threat and the marketing advantages of a GMO ban. By passing measure „H‰ the voters gave Mendocino growers a valuable tool in their marketing efforts, and the marketing benefits of a GMO ban were in fact the only point in the debate that both sides could agree on. The many wineries that buy grapes in both Lake and Mendocino Counties will likely now factor the Mendocino ban into their buying decisions, adopting a similar ban in Lake County will put us back on a level playing field where we compete on quality alone.
The situation with the pear industry is unfortunately completely different. The question is, how can we stop the decline before the last orchard is ripped-out? If you are selling a commodity you can't differentiate, the least cost and earliest producers either overseas or in the Sacramento Valley will drive the price down, sometimes below the cost of production. How can Lake County pear growers receive the premium they deserve and need to stay in business? The answer is by differentiating their product in every conceivable way. While being grown in a GMO-free zone isn't the whole answer, it would be an important step in the right direction. Imagine the difference when a buyer back East receives two phone calls, one representing Lake County pears grown in a GMO free zone and another representing valley pears where no such claim is able to be made. Again, it would place us back on a level playing field with Mendocino pears, which currently enjoy that unique marketing edge.
Recent years have seen the loss of much of our walnut acreage due to low returns and competing land uses. A large portion of Lake County walnuts are sold overseas to markets that have a record of rejecting GMO products, and given this fact, genetic contamination in the future poses a very real threat to both the conventional and organic branches of this industry. Walnut producers would receive a significant marketing advantage from a county-wide ban on the agricultural use of genetic engineering similar to the one recently adopted in Mendocino.
One of the reasons that the GMO ban received such broad support in Mendocino County is that it touched the heart of one of America's most important core values, the respect for private property. Everywhere that GMO crops have been grown has experienced an unwanted invasion of private property by GMO plants and their pollen. GMO plants, like all life forms, are capable of reproducing themselves and spreading throughout the environment, respecting no one's property rights along the way. The best and in fact the only proven defense against GMO contamination of our agricultural crops is to ban their introduction to the county in the first place.
Creating a GMO free growing region is one way to turn our geographical isolation into an advantage which has the potential to give rise to whole new fields of agriculture, such as certified GMO free seed production. Also, a Lake County GMO ban would help promote the image of an unspoiled natural environment, which could only help our tourism marketing efforts as well. The cost to the county government to implement such an ordinance would be insignificant compared to the marketing benefits, and a GMO ban would not affect the current operations or cultural practices of any local growers. Simply put, there are no genuine downsides to taking advantage of this unique marketing opportunity.
Respectfully submitted to the Lake County Board of Supervisors
Lake County growers and ranchers for a GMO free Lake Count
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