Letter to the Editor: Rep. Mike Brandenburg - Anti-Biotech Activists Have Agenda of Their Own

From the Grand Forks Herald Website

Anti-biotech activists have agenda of their own

EDGELEY, N.D. - In a recent commentary, Valley City, N.D., farmer Al Skogen shared results of a consumer survey by the International Food Information Council (“Public says yes to biotech foods,” Page 4A, Jan. 8).

The survey pointed out that biotechnology in food is a nonissue for most people, as it should be. Biotech products and processes are highly regulated and vigorously evaluated. Biotech already is widely used in medicine (synthetic insulin was the first biotech product, commercialized in 1982), and it's estimated that more than 70 percent of the food on our grocery shelves already contain biotech-derived ingredients.

Skogen's commentary was attacked in separate letters - one by Dean Hulse (“Biotech ‘study' smacks of self-interest,” Page 3D, Jan. 14), the other by Curtis Stofferahn (“Pro-biotech group touts an agenda,” Page 3D, Jan. 14). In what I suspect was a coordinated effort, they tried to discredit Skogen (who is the chairman of Growers for Biotechnology) and the information he presented.

A little research, however, quickly connects the dots between Hulse, Stofferahn and an anti-technology, organic agriculture agenda.

Hulse counted prwatch.org, and Stofferahn, sourcewatch.org as among their “sources” to discredit Skogen's commentary. Both of these Web sites are fronted by the Center for Media and Democracy, which is run by John Stauber, an environmental activist with ties to a number of extremist groups. One of these groups is the Organic Consumers Association, whose ludicrous political objectives include a global moratorium on biotech crops and the conversation of American agriculture to at least 30 percent organic by 2015.

Truth be told, Stofferahn and Hulse are regional activists with an anti-biotech, anti-business bias. Both have ties to the Dakota Resource Council, a fringe environmental organization bent on opposing industrial and agricultural advances at every turn.

Several years ago, Stofferahn and Hulse collaborated in writing “Defining Mission,” a position paper for the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society. The 5,847 word manifesto advocates against public/private R&D in favor of a socialized land-grant research process.

To the best of my knowledge, neither is directly involved with production agriculture; Stofferahn is a UND sociology professor, and Hulse is a writer and political activist. Yet, they would presume to know what's best for today's agriculture, with their 40-acres-and-a-mule throwback to farming in the 1930s.

Information and decisions about biotech crops should be based on sound science and realistic business principles, not misinformation and hyperbole of fringe groups and environmental activists.

Mike Brandenburg

Brandenburg, a Republican, represents District 28 in the North Dakota House of Representatives.