Pioneer, Syngenta and Agrigenetics (DOW) are asking a federal judge to invalidate Kauai County’s pesticide-GMO disclosure law and prevent its implementation.
The complaint, filed in federal District Court late Friday afternoon, says “Bill 2491 irrationally prohibits Plaintiffs from growing any crops, whether genetically modified or not, within arbitrarily drawn buffer zones inapplicable to other growers, and restricts Plaintiffs’ pesticide use within those buffer zones.”
“The ordinance is invalid,” Paul Minehart, a spokesman for Syngenta, said in an interview. “It arbitrarily targets our industry with burdensome and baseless restrictions on farming operations by attempting to regulate activities over which counties in Hawaii have no jurisdiction. These activities are already regulated by governmental agencies under state and federal laws.”
The controversial Kauai law requires large agricultural companies to disclose pesticide use and GMO crop plantings while establishing buffer zones around schools, homes and hospitals.
Read the full, original post: Seed Companies Sue to Invalidate Bill 2491
