In November, voters in Washington's San Juan County banned genetically modified crops. Now Southern Oregon's Rogue Valley could follow suit: a proposed ban has qualified for the 2014 Jackson County ballot.
It all began with sugar beets. A company called Syngenta Seeds grows genetically modified sugar beets in Jackson County.
Chuck Burr, who owns an organic seed company and farm in Ashland, says the pollen from sugar beets can drift and cross breed with other plants. Burr worried that his organic chard and a nearby field of genetically modified beets were swapping pollen, and threw away more than $4,000 of seed crop.
Read more here:
http://earthfix.opb.org
