Mara Abbott: GMO debate about everything except GMOs

Last December, Adrian Card ruined grocery shopping for me. Card is the CSU extension agent to Boulder County, and was the lead author of "Economic, Environmental and Social Implications of Cropping Systems in Boulder County," a 2015 briefing paper for the county commissioners. I discovered it researching the commissioners' decision to ban genetically engineered crops on county open space.It's a snapshot of data gathered from six Northern Colorado farms between 2011 and 2015, and it documented organic crops that had released six times more sequestered carbon from the soil and used 10 times more water than genetically engineered varieties. GE crops also decreased pesticide use by 80 percent compared to their conventional counterparts. I was paralyzed. I had always self-identified as a good Boulder environmentalist, and figured that meant that non-organic was a non-starter (and the organic definition excludes GMOs). Now where was I supposed to buy my kale? (Currently, there are no GMO varieties of kale.)My doubts about the GMO ban's merits blossomed. After all, the ban's loudest supporters claimed to be fighting for reduced pesticide use and more sustainable cropping methods. Commissioner Deb Gardner specifically cited researching carbon sequestration as a top priority of the transition. If on county land the currently approved GE crops could actually be making positive progress toward those goals, why was there such a strong desire to outlaw them? The open-space farmers themselves had always voiced near unanimous opposition to the ban. They explained that it would create economic instability and that it contradicted their generations-deep study of how to farm Boulder County sustainably. Many felt powerless in the debate.