GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Six major producers of herbicides and genetically modified crops are shoveling $380,000 into the campaign to defeat measures to prohibit genetically modified crops in southwestern Oregon.
Political contributions posted Thursday on the Oregon Secretary of State website show the money was donated by Bayer CropScience, BASF Plant Science, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer, Monsanto Company and Syngenta Crop Protection.
They bring to $445,470 the amount that Good Neighbor Farmers political action committee has amassed to defeat the measures on the May ballot in Josephine and Jackson counties.
Syngenta leases land in the two counties involved in producing seed for sugar beets genetically modified to withstand herbicides.
Organic farmers put the measures on the county ballots because they are afraid that wind-blown pollen from Syngenta plots will contaminate their crops.
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