Any biotech wheat plantings would require public hearings, consultation with a panel of experts and the commissioner's approval before they could go ahead.
The commissioner would have to consider whether customers would accept biotech wheat, and whether grain-handling channels could keep it separate from regular wheat, the proposed law says.
Scientists at North Dakota State University are already growing test plots of the wheat variety, which is bred to withstand a herbicide that kills other plants. The proposed law allows cultivation of biotech wheat research plots, if they are segregated from other crops.
Jim Kusler, a Beulah organic farmer, said Friday that biotech wheat holds the potential to wreck North Dakota farmers' wheat export markets, and careful review of the technology is needed before it is introduced here.
"Apart from the competing arguments about the potential benefits and risks of this new biotechnology, there remains one stubborn, uncontested fact. North Dakota's wheat customers have made it crystal clear they don't want genetically modified wheat," Kusler said at a news conference Friday.
Kusler is a former state senator and North Dakota secretary of state. The measure will need petition signatures from at least 12,844 North Dakota voters to go on the ballot. Kusler hopes to put the question to a vote in November.
Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson said he had not studied the measure at length, and has not decided whether to support or oppose it. However, worries about the reaction of overseas customers to biotech wheat are valid, Johnson said.
"This measure hits that question head on, and says market acceptance is an issue, and it needs to be dealt with," Johnson said. "(The measure is) certainly is one of the different alternatives that the public ought to be considering."
John Mittleider, a North Dakota Farm Bureau vice president, said the measure's potential effects would require study. It gives the agriculture commissioner considerable power, and may illegally restrict interstate commerce, Mittleider said.
"I think there's just a lot of questions about this measure...that we need to look through, sort out and make some decisions upon," Mittleider said.
Lance Hagen, director of the North Dakota Grain Growers, said members of his organization are split on whether biotech wheat would be beneficial. The group represents wheat and barley farmers.
"I think it's a good deal," Hagen said. "We need to get this debate out in the public, and I hope that they're debates instead of 30-second sound bites."
North Dakota's Constitution gives voters the right to put proposed laws directly on the statewide ballot, if a measure's supporters can gather enough petition signatures.
During the last two sessions of the Legislature, lawmakers have defeated measures to restrict the North Dakota introduction of biotech wheat. Farm groups, and farmers themselves, are divided on the subject.
The most common biotech seed used in North Dakota is "Roundup Ready" seed, named after a herbicide manufactured by Monsanto Co. of St. Louis. Roundup normally kills all plants, but those grown with Roundup Ready seed do not die.
Biotech canola and soybeans already represent more than 60 percent of North Dakota's production, and account for about 30 percent of the state's corn crop. Monsanto is developing a biotech hard red spring wheat seed variety, but has not introduced it for commercial use.
Janice Armstrong, a Monsanto spokeswoman in St. Louis, said the company intends to satisfy a number of conditions before introducing biotech wheat, including demonstrations that it is environmentally safe.
"While initiatives such as this may be described as necessary for industry protection, in reality, they only serve to discourage investment in innovative biotechnology products within the wheat industry," Armstrong said in a statement.
Organic farmers, who worry that pollen from biotech crops will pollute their own product, have been skeptical about the push for genetically modified seed.
North Dakota ranks second in the nation in organic cropland, with 144,890 acres, behind only California's 163,158 acres, the U.S. Agriculture Department says. In 2001, the latest year for which figures are available, there were 1.3 million acres of organic cropland in the United States.
Fred Kirschenmann, who raises organic hard red spring wheat and durum in Stutsman County, said any North Dakota introduction of biotech wheat would ruin markets for the state's organic farmers.
Buyers of organic grain worry about contamination from biotech crops, and if they are introduced in North Dakota, organic customers will look elsewhere, Kirschenmann said.
"Our current customers, mostly who are customers in Europe, have said no. They're not going to buy the wheat," he said. "It doesn't make any difference whether they're right or wrong, whether they're scientifically accurate or inaccurate. The customer is always right."
Kusler has not submitted the ballot measure to Secretary of State Al Jaeger for his approval, a necessary step before it may be circulated among voters. He still needs paperwork from some of the measure's sponsors, he said.
The proposal needs at least 25 sponsors before it may be circulated, and a list Kusler provided on Friday listed only 13. He expects to begin circulating the measure within a few weeks, Kusler said.
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