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When the Board of Supervisors approved Measure M for the November ballot, they did so with little enthusiasm.

Known as the anti-GMO bill, the initiative attained sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot as early as April, and the Board had no choice but to put it on the ballot for the voters to decide.

Check that: The Board could have also simply accepted the initiative and passed it as county ordinance, though such an approval of an initiative petition is rare. Besides, the Supervisors expressed skepticism over the broad restrictions of the initiative and were more than willing to give voters the final say.

Officially entitled the “Sonoma County Transgenic Contamination Prevention Ordinance,” and on the ballot as Measure M, the bill would “prohibit the propagation, cultivation, raising, or growing of genetically engineered organisms” in unincorporated Sonoma County, and require the Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner to enforce the ordinance.