USDA on GMO RR Alfalfa

[near horse]

Hi –

I just read this article on the USDA’s new look at regulating Roundup Ready alfalfa in Hay and Forage Grower and thought it might be of interest to some here. It’s an article so I’ve put it in an attached Word doc.

[blue80]

This article and update was of great interest to me, thanks Geoff!

Note that a public comment period of 30 days was begun back on Dec. 23. at AHPIS.

For those interested, let’s take the time to voice our concerns at the Animal Health Plant Inspection Service of GMO trespassing on our rights to grow and preserve our own crops/seed!! This is a time where alfalfa, beets and other seed rulings are all coming to a head.

For those who don’t know, when GMO cross pollinates with our crop making totally new protiens, we cannot legally save our own seed as we have “infringed” on the GMO intellectual property rights filed at the USPTO.:eek: There have been many documented cases of GMO litigating against the consumer in this area. So far its been David and Goliath with Goliath kickin butt….:eek:

[blue80]

Sorry, http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ not ahpis!:o

[near horse]

I got an update RE: USDA, Monsanto and Round up Ready alfalfa. It looks like Vilsack and USDA are supporting a “peaceful coexistence” between the GM users and the non-users – just requiring buffer distances between the two when planted. How is that supposed to work? Who gives way and plants their crop elsewhere?

Read on –

Take a stand for organics, tell Secretary Vilsack and President Obama to reject Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa

Everything you thought you knew about organics is about to change. If the USDA and Monsanto get their way, organic integrity is about to go the way of the dinosaur.

Once again, the organic industry is under assault. This time the USDA is determined to let Monsanto ride roughshod over common sense environmental rules that would protect organic farmers from having their crops contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) Roundup Ready seeds.

Last month, the USDA released its position on Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa, stating that the USDA would go ahead and allow GMO alfalfa to be planted in the U.S. despite the fact that is scientifically proven to contaminate organic alfalfa, a crop that organic dairy farmers and organic beef producers depend upon for feed. According to USDA organic standards, GMO crops are not allowed for animal feed.1

If organic and conventional alfalfa crops are allowed to be contaminated by GMO alfalfa, the organic dairy industry stands to lose more than $1.4 billion, as organic integrity is dependent upon GMO-free ingredients and feed.2

Click on the link below to tell Secretary Vilsack and President Obama that you refuse to accept genetic contamination of the organic industry. Tell him it’s time to stand up to Monsanto and the biotech industry. It’s vital that he hear from you today.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/329?akid=285.59451.a73XdM&t=7

Coexistence and the Road to Continued Organic Contaminiation

In his most recent announcement, Vilsack hoped to be able to offer a “middle ground” on GMOs. The Obama administration’s bright idea calls for a new era of “coexistence” between the organic and biotech industries.

The “coexistence” model – one of the two proposed options – would create “geographic restrictions and isolation distances” between GMO and non-GMO alfalfa fields. The problem with “coexistence”, is that it looks a lot like the past 15 years where organic and conventional farmers have been forced to go out of business or adopt GMOs because the technology is so flawed that it can’t be planted in one farmer’s field and stay there.

No, GMO crops routinely contaminate other farmer’s fields — that is, genetically pollute other crops that don’t contain their patented genes. While prudent, non-corporate scientists have warned against the unknown long-term consequences of genetic contamination in nature caused by GMO seeds and crops, past administrations and USDA bureaucrats have gone ahead and recklessly approved these crops anyway.

Already the biotech industry is throwing a fit about this being a “dangerous precedent”, taken to mean that they could no longer fully dictate the terms of seed planting and approval. 3 But we need to let Secretary Vilsack and President Obama know that if they allow GMO alfalfa to be planted, from this point forward, the history books will write about the loss of the organic industry under Vilsack and Obama’s watch.

Click on the link below to tell Secretary Vilsack and President Obama that you’re outraged that they would needlessly put the organic industry, environment and future generations at risk in favor of corporate profits.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/329?akid=285.59451.a73XdM&t=9

GMO Alfalfa Not Needed By Farmers, Not Worth the Risk

Unfortunately, rather than provide protection for the fastest growing and most profitable sector in agriculture, the Obama administration is needlessly putting the $26 billion organic industry at risk over a GMO crop that is not needed by farmers.

As a crop, genetically modified alfalfa is entirely unnecessary. Since alfalfa is a perennial grain, it has significantly less weed competition than annual crops where Roundup is normally used. Unlike corn, soybeans and other crops, alfalfa does not have persistent weed problems, therefore Monsanto’s and the biotech industry’s arguments for seeking approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa based on the need for weed control are completely without merit. It would appear that the only thing that Monsanto is seeking is another revenue stream for its failed line of Roundup Ready seeds.

Unfortunately, if Vilsack does go ahead with his decision to deregulate GMO alfalfa or opt for “coexistence”, things are about to get a whole lot worse for farmers. Not only will the organic industry have to deal with massive genetic contamination, but farmers everywhere will have to figure out how to deal with the further spread of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready resistant superweeds which have already spread to at least 10 species of weeds and have infested millions of acres in 22 U.S. states since 2000.4

For farmers the rise in superweeds leads to an increased usage of herbicides, which not only contaminate our rivers and streams, but also decreases profits for farmers and creates unknown potential human health problems. Already, farmers across the U.S. are being forced to use 2 or even 3 toxic herbicides to keep superweeds at bay.

Click on the link below to tell Secretary Vilsack and President Obama to stand up for organic integrity and that organic farmers and consumers have a right to eat food that is not contaminated with Monsanto’s patented GMO genes!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/329?akid=285.59451.a73XdM&t=11

Thank you for participating in food democracy, your action today may help save the organic industry.

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team

Sources:

1. “USDA Announces Final Environmental Impact Statement for Genetically Engineered Alfalfa” United States Department of Agriculture, Press Release, December 16, 2010.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/326?akid=285.59451.a73XdM&t=13

2. “DeFazio Wants Rules on Genetically Engineered Alfalfa”, Natural Resource Report, July 3, 2010.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/180?akid=285.59451.a73XdM&t=15

3. “Biotech alfalfa restrictions would be ‘dangerous precedent’”, Dairy Herd Management, January 7, 2011.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/327?akid=285.59451.a73XdM&t=17

4. “Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds”, The New York Times, May 3, 2010.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/328?akid=285.59451.a73XdM&t=19

Keep GMOs out of Organics!

Clicking here will automatically add your name to the letter to Secretary Vilsack and President Obama:

The USDA must immediately ban Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa from the market and work to ensure that the organic industry is protected from genetic contamination and loss of profits and stand up for the basic rights for Americans to know what is in their food and how it’s produced.

Go to the food democracy site to support the above statement.

[blue80]

Another update, don’t think its been covered yet here, RR alfalfa has been approved without restrictions.
Apparently the “coexistence” talk was just to cool down the public roar? Apparently it has worked, Whole Foods, Organic Valley, Stonyfield Farms have all drank the coolaid and have backed off their anti GMO stance.

http://www.roundupreadyalfalfa.com/

Quite a milestone actually, the first RR product which is perennial. Arguably, cross pollination to conventional alfalfa will be unstoppable. RR alfalfa being approved is now a benchmark for other RR crops….

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/

It is fantastic to see how this crap can be legally advocated and grown while polluting the air, water, and killing microorganisms in the earth to provide a product which is altered in its chemical composition and trespasses onto my property so I cannot legally keep my own seed, all the while, I still can’t in the foreseeably future sell a jug of milk.

[Andy Carson]

Even though I can envision some good coming out of GE, I have always though the whole RR concept was a silly application of the technology… It’s really only a matter of time before round up resistant weeds come around and make the technology obsolete. Maybe this will happen through horizontal gene transfer or though natural selection, but it’s only a matter of time until is does happen… I was doing a little reading about the Supreme Courts decision regarding RR crops (link below).

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-475.pdf

Initially, I was struck by the statement that it is the farmer’s responsibility to protect themselves from the environment (including his neighbors seeds and pollen). This seemed strange on the surface, but I thought about it a little more and I think it’s makes some sense. My thought went like this… What if it was NOT the farmer’s responsibility to protect his crops? Whose responsibility is it then? His neighbors? It would be a strange world if you neighbor could knock on your door, said he wanted to grow a different type of alfalfa than you, and that he intended to save to seed, so please kill all your alfalfa. Oh yeah, and if you don’t, and he finds some hybrid seed, you can expect a lawsuit. Strange indeed… So it does make some sense to me, but together with the patent law, it leads down a road I don’t really like. I can take some comfort in knowing the roundup resistant weeds will eventually make the whole round-up ready concept obsolete… Maybe then things will return to normal, or maybe big ag will move on to the next herbicide. Kinda reminds me of when antibiotics were new, and how doctors used to prescribe penicillin for everything before bacteria started to develop resistance. Penicillin is not nearly as useful now… You know, one reason why they make antibiotics require a prescription is that if the general public had access to them, there would overuse and this may lead to resistance. You know, anyone can go buy Round-Up… I wonder how long it would take to develop Roundup resistant weeds if one sprayed small amounts of Round-Up on the same piece of ground over and over again (possibly titrated such that it killed about 90% of the weeds)? I might guess at some sort of rotational spraying program would be most efficient so if the Round-Up levels ever got so high they killed everything, the ground could be reseeded by the neighboring partially resistant weeds and the whole process wouldn’t have to be started again from scratch. I did an experiment with antibiotic resistance in bacteria (years ago) and saw that antibiotic resistance in bacteria more than quadrupled in only one week when the bacteria were exposed to a slowly increasing concentration of antibiotic. Plants, will, for sure, be much slower. Doing this on purpose is probably criminal and I am certainly advocating it, but I wonder if these types of “self-defense” reactions will become commonplace in the future. Farmers that I have known do not often “just give up” and property lines can be crossed by seed and pollen both ways…

Another (much less drastic) method to ensure your crops is not contaminated is to simply test them. If one tested them like Monsanto does, it would be prohibitively expensive, but I bet if if one is clever, they can pick a variety of seed that “looks different” from the round-up ready variety. If one grow red corn, for example, then you could “see” the yellow results of RR crop contamination. Not in the first generation (yellow is dominant) but if any yellow kernels showed up in later generations, the seed got contaminated sometime and it would be a good time to take steps to make sure your seed is pure. This is probably more difficult with other crops, but I bet one could still pick some types with visible differences from the RR variety. Worst case scenario, one could spout 500 seeds, expose them to round-up and see how many live… It’s nice to have a test that is in your hands instead of Monsanto’s.

[dominiquer60]

I don’t get the RR Alfalfa, especially since I can’t seeing the need to spray it, we’ve been doing alfalfa for years and the worst enemy we have are the wet spots, sure it is not off the truck from the west perfect, but it doesn’t need to be.

“farmer’s responsibility to protect themselves from the environment” How does the government and Monsanto expect us to protect ourselves from something that we have no control over. If we could protect ourselves from pollution by pollen, shouldn’t we be able to protect ourselves from tornadoes, drought, acid rain, drunk drivers and the emerald ash borer? It is a weak excuse for legal greed if you ask me.

Erika

[Tim Harrigan]

@dominiquer60 25350 wrote:

I don’t get the RR Alfalfa, especially since I can’t seeing the need to spray it, we’ve been doing alfalfa for years and the worst enemy we have are the wet spots, sure it is not off the truck from the west perfect, but it doesn’t need to be.

Erika

I agree, Erika. The guys that are most interested in a pure, clean stand of alfalfa reseed every 3-4 years anyway. We lose stand because of winter kill, often we get volunteer brome or orchardgrass or something to fill in and I am not sure why I would want to kill it. Seems to me roundup doesn’t really kill alfalfa anyway.

[Andy Carson]

@dominiquer60 25350 wrote:

“farmer’s responsibility to protect themselves from the environment” How does the government and Monsanto expect us to protect ourselves from something that we have no control over.

I think the expectation is that one protects their crop’s seed by spacing it away from the neighbors seed with isolation zones of different sizes dependent upon the grade of seed one wants to produce. 165 feet for certified seed, 900 feet for foundation seed. Either of these grades has defined levels of non-type seeds that are deemed acceptable. If there was a consensus on what levels of cross pollination are “acceptable” than I think it would be relatively simply to determine the spacing requirements. Unfortunately, although there seems to be a consensus with respect to the non-GM varieties, whether these ought to apply to GM crops is a matter of debate. It seems the law treats it like any other crop.

[dominiquer60]

I don’t see these distance requirements meaning squat. Here we are lucky to have a few dry places out of 300 acres owned/rented that actually grow alfalfa. If it happens to be next to the only place that the neighbor can grow alfalfa, it would be difficult to separate the fields more than the width of a hedge row and have any room left for alfalfa. Small irregular shaped fields make enough challenges, try to move it 900 feet and you are in the next town over in between a rock shelf and a swamp. Besides the fact that bees can travel miles and even though they do not prefer alfalfa flowers, chances are likely that they will aid in contamination.

It is all hog wash, no that could be useful, it as worthless as hen sh!t on a pump handle, sorry again that has value, it is about as meaningful as an elected representative, I’ll leave it as that.

Erika

[Andy Carson]

@dominiquer60 25354 wrote:

it is about as meaningful as an elected representative

Now there’s a statement I can get behind! 😀

[Author]

Posts