Your recent editorial against Ballot Measure 92, which would require the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), has me bewildered.

Monsanto, a leading producer of such seed, claims to be proud of their patented genetically engineered creation and is aggressively promoting it to farmers, with extraordinary success. It now dominates the growing of several crops in this country.

So why don’t they want to promote the presence of their agricultural invention to the public? If it’s so wonderful for all of us, I would expect them eager to have food containing it be prominently labeled as such.

Given the information I’ve read and believe, I wouldn’t be scared to eat products containing it. It’s unlikely to be worse than a lot of what most Americans eat. Maybe it’s because human consumption is far from the whole story.

The GMOs of Monsanto are one-half of a two-part system, and this process is an environmental disaster and a long-term economic problem. The grain is specifically genetically engineered to promote the intense use of Monsanto’s “Roundup,” an incredibly toxic, broadly, but not totally, effective herbicide. This herbicide has led to bad and sloppy farming practices.

A farmer is quoted (The Bulletin; Aug. 17), “I consider myself a Roundup baby, and it was great. You didn’t have to think about anything.” But now his farm is overrun with death-defying weeds!

Seems he should have been thinking more. Seems Mother Nature develops plants that can mutate fast enough and in sufficient numbers to survive our scientists’ cleverest efforts to kill them. Then these herbicides no longer work so well, and new ones are needed with more unintended consequences.

Worse, this natural rate of mutation is faster than we can respond to it, and the new varieties are often more destructive than their parents. Additional irresponsible consequences of GMO use have been the devastation of beneficial plants and insects, such as Monarch butterflies and bees (The Bulletin; Sept. 21), the latter a critical component of successful crops in the U.S. worth tens of billions of dollars each year.

This new unnatural “desert” we’re creating for these and most other insects and beneficial flora is destroying our environmental system. Add to this that making each crop so unified (e.g., corn is now 90 percent laboratory-engineered) is resulting in massive susceptibility to a single destructive scourge, as has already happened in our corn belt (The Bulletin; Oct. 4).

This practice of extreme specialization has been known for decades to be bad risk management. But we don’t learn. The focus on short-term profits is so strong it overwhelms wise long-term stewardship that requires patience.

I just received the propaganda flier urging me to vote no on 92. It tells me how expensive it will be and how labeling costs will massively “… increase grocery costs for Oregon families by hundreds of dollars per year” as the farmers pass on the regulation costs to the consumer.

This vague generality suggests an increase of between 5 percent and 10 percent on yearly grocery bills just because of GMO regulations. Nonsense! Are not the costs of dealing with the problems created by Roundup (The Bulletin; Aug. 17: $11 million in Georgia alone, 2009, and exploding) passed on because of the negative consequences?

We already have oversight systems. We already have labeling. This is not a whole new procedure, just an addition to the existing system.

I agree the bill is not perfect and could be better-written. So let the proponents of GMOs give us good labeling regulations to promote their supposedly wonderfully beneficial invention. But we’d better not forget that Europe, Japan and South Korea, all important export customers, have seen the hypocrisy and ban many of our products that are infected with it.

The truth is we shouldn’t be worrying about labeling GMO products, though that is a good step. Better we should ban their use entirely and return to healthy farming practices.

— David Horn lives in Bend.