Capital Press
by Sean Ellis
Phillip Geertson, an Idaho and Oregon farmer who campaigned against the use of genetically modified alfalfa and was part of a lawsuit that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s first ruling on genetically engineered crops, passed away Nov. 24.
Enjoy this GMO Free Idaho interview with Mr. Geertson from 2012
RIDGEVIEW, Ore. — Phillip Walter Geertson, an Oregon and Idaho farmer who died Nov. 24, will be remembered by many as a campaigner against the use of genetically engineered alfalfa.
His family members and others who knew him, however, say they will remember him for much more than that.
Geertson was 75 when he passed away from cancer in a Portland, Ore., hospital.
Don Tolmie, production manager of Treasure Valley Seed Co. in Homedale, Idaho, said Geertson was well known for doing things his way, even if it went against the norm.
“Phil was a different cat; he was pretty unique,” Tolmie said. “He had the Phil way of doing things that was not always the commonly accepted way of doing things.”
Geertson farmed on both sides of the Idaho-Oregon border.
He is widely known as the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit along with the Center for Food Safety against genetically engineered alfalfa that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court’s first ruling, in 2010, on genetically modified crops.
Geertson claimed the use of genetically engineered alfalfa resulted in cross-pollination with his conventional alfalfa and resulted in export losses.
That 7-1 Supreme Court decision overturned a lower court ruling that placed a nationwide ban on the planting of alfalfa genetically modified to resist glyphosate, a weed killer marketed by Monsanto Co. as Roundup.
Both sides claimed victory in that ruling because the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa was still effectively banned because the U.S. Department of Agriculture was required as a result of lower court rulings to conduct an environmental impact study before deregulating it.
Geertson was involved in several similar lawsuits and never received a dime from them, said his nephew, Pat Geertson. He continued to speak to other farmers around the world about the GMO issue the rest of his life.
“He didn’t understand what the need for it was and he feared the contamination would exclude a lot of hay exports from this country,” said his daughter, JoAnn Behrends.
Phillip Geertson specialized in growing alfalfa seed and varieties he developed were sold around the nation.
He also raised sugar beets, wheat, hybrid field corn and native plant seed and was growing blueberries in Sherwood, Ore., shortly before his death.
Pat Geertson said his uncle was instrumental in the leafcutter bee industry in the 1970s because he built and patented machines that drilled bee boards.
“He did a lot of things,” Pat Geertson said. “He was always building things and coming up with different ideas all the time.”
Behrends said her family wants Phillip Geertson to be remembered as someone who always did things the way he thought they should be done, even if it didn’t always line up with conventional wisdom.
“He wouldn’t just take what the big companies gave him for price; he would find ways to market it himself if he had to,” she said. “We always said there was the right way and wrong way and then there was the Phil way.”
