Editorial: Wild rice/No need to mess with genome

March 21, 2005
Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, and Rep. Karen Clark, DFL-Minneapolis, have a good idea: Enact legislation prohibiting all uses of genetically modified wild rice in Minnesota. Although it's good, the idea probably won't advance far this year, but just having the two legislators put forward the bill puts the scientific and agricultural communities on notice that they mess with wild rice at their peril.

Wild rice is about as Minnesotan as anything gets. Not only is it the state grain -- a status it has held since 1977 -- it carries enormous spiritual importance for the Ojibwe people, whose tradition teaches that it was the rice, which they call manoomin, that led them from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to their home in Minnesota. Wild rice, they believe, is a gift from their creator, a gift they are charged with protecting. And right now they view the threat of genetic engineering as the influence from which manoomin most needs protection.

It is frequently suggested that Ojibwe leaders exaggerate the threat. But given the history of Ojibwe-white interactions, their refusal to let the subject go is understandable and justified. The Ojibwe have lost much of what they were, and wild rice goes to the center of their existence. They cling to it with an admirable ferocity. Besides, there's no real reason for fooling with the genome. Wild rice is a niche crop that is an important food for the Ojibwe but an occasional purchase for most others. It should be left alone.

For years, talks have been held in an on-again-off-again dialogue about the issues surrounding wild rice, which is now a cultivated paddy crop as well as a wild, hand-harvested grain. The talks have aimed at reaching some sort of understanding that would protect the wild strain from contamination, but they have produced very little. Perhaps the legislative effort by Lourey and Clark will energize the effort at effective dialogue.

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