G-M-No!

For some, it’s about the environment. For others, it’s human health. But for virtually all young activists fighting the infiltration of genetically engineered foods into the nation’s farms and onto consumer’s plates, it’s about choice.

Activists say that through the spread of GEs (genetically engineered foods), the choices for consumers and farmers are being limited. And that is motivating many young people to get involved – whether it’s gathering signatures of support for one of the many local initiatives about the issue, training other activists, organizing and attending protests and teach-ins, or just talking to their neighbors.

For Amy Stoddard, 25, of Santa Cruz, Calif., the genetic engineering issue was her introduction to activism. She began learning about genetic engineering in Berkeley five years ago. A few months after seeing a flyer about the issue, she went to a GMO teach-in in San Francisco.

“At first I was casually horrified, but the more I learned about it the more concerned I got,” she says. In 2001 she was one of approximately 1,200 people who attended the Biojustice protest in San Diego – a demonstration against the annual convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the largest biotechnology trade organization in the U.S. “That was a major event for me, it got me more inspired and more involved,” she says.

Stoddard then began participating in Bay RAGE, or Resistance Against Genetic Engineering, in Berkeley, tabling outside of Safeway grocery stores and volunteering for the Organic Consumer’s Association. Although those experiences led her to pay more attention to other environmental issues, GMOs have been her focus. As her senior project as a Community Studies major at University of California, Santa Cruz, she created a self-teaching curriculum for people interested in the issue. She also did a six-month, full-time internship with Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, a coalition of farmers, consumer and environmental groups working to stop the cultivation of GMOs in the state.

The group provides training and resources for organizers in the California counties trying to implement bans against growing GEs. Local campaigns have been successful in Mendocino and Marin counties so far, and more are being formed throughout the state. In Sonoma County, Calif. organizers are hoping to gather enough signatures to warrant a special election in March 2005.

Patrick Band, 21, who is gathering signatures as part of GE-Free Sonoma campaign, says his biggest concern about GEs is the lack of testing and oversight. The three government agencies that share responsibility for regulating GEs – the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration – require only minimal scientific testing and often rely on the biotech companies’ data rather than performing their own tests or using independent data.

“They’re untested, unregulated technologies that might have future advantages,” Band says, “but the risks associated with them aren’t really known.”

Band was one of more than 100 people arrested during the Reclaim the Commons protest in June of this year, a gathering of thousands of people who came out show their opposition to attendants of the 2004 BIO Conference. He and others spent the day in jail before being cited with charges ranging from resisting and delaying arrest to traffic violations. The charges against Band were later dropped.

As he and other activists are gathering the additional signatures needed to get a ban on the ballot this March, Band says he enjoys educating people about the issue and hearing different points of view. “It’s a really nice thing about being an activist,” he says, “you get to go out into the community and interact with people you normally wouldn’t.” But, it’s not always easy. Many people feel removed from the GE movement and assume that genetic engineering still does not affect their lives. In fact, Band hopes to point out, it is already in the food we eat. At least 70 percent of all packaged foods contain ingredients from one or more genetically engineered crop – the two biggest being corn and soy.