Church pastor Karl Limvere will this week begin a statewide crusade to save North Dako

ta’s wheat industry.

Limvere, pastor of Medina’s Zion United Church of Christ, and 26 other members of a group called the Go Slow with GMO Committee will begin to distribute a statewide petition in hopes of slowing, if not stopping, the introduction of genetically modified wheat.

They hope to gather the 12,844 signatures needed to get their cause, crafted into a proposed measure, on the Nov. 2 ballot. They have until Aug. 4 to get the signatures.

The group hasn’t sought or received endorsements and plans to begin circulating the petition are unorchestrated.

“We would like to have it ready for the November ballot, but this may stretch longer than we would like,” Limvere said last week.

Some critics of the proposed ballot measure say the state’s wheat industry doesn’t need saving. The measure, they say, would do more harm than good in a state that often leads the nation in wheat production.

The proposed measure’s language also has drawn criticism from the state’s two largest farm organizations -- the Farm Bureau and Farmers Union -- both of which support a go-slow approach for the high-tech wheat’s release.

The measure would give North Dakota’s agriculture commissioner the authority to decide if farmers could plant genetically modified wheat.

The commissioner would have to convene a fact-finding committee of six independent experts and hold at least one public hearing before deciding the matter. The committee would have to consider if genetically modified wheat could be segregated, if there’s a market for the grain and what kind of liability issues might exist.

It would allow biotech wheat research to continue at North Dakota State University as long as test fields are separated from traditional wheat crops.

The measure would give one person, the agriculture commissioner, too much power, said Eric Aasmundstad, a Ramsey County farmer and president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau.

Robert Carlson, president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, said he’s concerned with the measure’s language regarding who would be the appointed experts of a factfinding committee.

“There’s no farmers,” he said. “I am concerned about the mix of people who would advise.”

Most experts would be from the academic or plant science communities.

The committee’s proposed ballot measure isn’t the first attempt to rein in biotech wheat. For the past several years, lawmakers have floated bills to either ban or restrict the crop’s production. They’ve all failed.

The Go Slow with GMO Committee’s distaste for genetically modified wheat is one of economics.

About half of the wheat grown in the United States is exported. And U.S. farmers’ largest customers, including Japan and Europe, don’t want genetically modified wheat.

The wheat grown in North

Dakota last year is worth more than $1 billion, said Jim Peterson, marketing specialist with the North Dakota Wheat Commission.

A market backlash against genetically modified wheat could cripple farmers in North Dakota, the nation’s largest producer of hard red spring wheat, said Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson.

“I think it’s very important that we acknowledge the marketplace and produce what our customers want,” he said.

St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. has developed a genetically modified wheat that tolerates the company’s Round Up herbicide. The technology would allow farmers to apply one herbicide for a large spectrum of weeds.

Monsanto is teaming with NDSU to develop biotech wheat varieties best suited for North Dakota’s harsh weather.

Federal approval of Monsanto’s gene-altered wheat could come as early as next year.

Monsanto, however, has pledged not to commercialize the wheat until there’s market acceptance and other concerns are satisfied.

If so, Limvere says, Monsanto and supporters of its wheat technology, have nothing to fear from the proposed ballot measure. “This is a way to make sure the good intentions and promises made are fulfilled,” he said.

Aasmundstad says the proposed ballot measure would send the message that North Dakota doesn’t want to take part in technological advances.

“Who’s going to grow it if nobody wants it?” Aasmundstad said. “The free market system works, and we’ve got to let it work.”

With the measure’s passage, large companies who heavily invest in the development of new crop technologies may abandon the needs of North Dakota farmers, said Ken Grafton, director of NDSU’s experiment stations.

“Technology will literally bypass us,” Grafton said.

“The big picture here, I think, is that we’ve got a lot of novel traits coming forward with this technology,” he said. “If it was wheat with drought resistance would we be opposed to that, too?”

Readers can reach Forum reporter

Jeff Zent at (701) 241-5526