Roundup Ready alfalfa status updated
By Cindy Snyder, Ag Weekly correspondent
Friday, February 29, 2008 5:32 PM CST
BURLEY, Idaho - Producers who want to grow Roundup Ready alfalfa will have to wait a while longer.
Following a lawsuit filed by the Center for Food Safety a year ago, Roundup Ready alfalfa was re-regulated while an environmental impact statement is completed. That process is expected to take another year or two. Growers who had planted Roundup Ready alfalfa before March 30, 2007, can still harvest it but must follow guidelines released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in December.
The December order amends the rules issued last summer by USDA. Some of those rules didn’t seem to make sense, said Dan Rongen, a Monsanto representative from the Magic Valley. For example, the original rules seemed to indicate that every bale of Roundup Ready alfalfa had to be identified.
The new order clarifies that Roundup Ready alfalfa must be segregated and the load identified as Roundup Ready when the hay truck leaves the farm. A buyer or reseller of hay cannot commingle loads of Roundup Ready and conventional hay unless the lot is identified as Roundup Ready.
Producers who raise alfalfa to feed as hay or haylage to livestock on their farm do not need to follow the labeling requirements on farm, but any hay used off farm must be labeled.
Equipment used to harvest both Roundup Ready and conventional alfalfa must be cleaned before leaving a field of Roundup Ready alfalfa. If equipment is dedicated to harvesting only Roundup Ready hay, the equipment doesn’t need to be cleaned but it must be clearly marked for use only in Roundup Ready fields.
Pollinators are not to be released in Roundup Ready fields intended for hay production only. Philip Geertson, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, asked Jeff Herrmann, another Monsanto representative, if stacking genes such as Roundup Ready traits in corn, was a contributing factor to the decline seen in honey bees. Herrmann said he was unaware of any impact.
Rongen told hay growers at the Idaho Hay and Forage Conference this week that the rules came from USDA, not Monsanto.
“We think the technology is safe,” Rongen said. “We think we have demonstrated that strategies can be implemented to protect grower choice.”
The USDA had deregulated Roundup Ready alfalfa and the crop was planted on about 200,000 acres nationwide between June 14, 2005, and March 30, 2007.
An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 acres were planted in Idaho.
The Center for Food Safety filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California on March 12, 2007, arguing the environmental assessment completed by USDA prior to deregulation did not address all concerns. The Center’s primary concerns with the Roundup Ready technology is that pollen from the crop will contaminate both organic and conventional alfalfa seed production and that weed resistance will develop from the over use of glyphosate.
In May of 2007, the Court ordered the USDA to reverse its deregulation of the technology, which led the USDA to issue the administrative order outlining how to harvest, handle and transport the crop. The USDA must also complete an Environmental Impact Statement on the technology.
Rongen said four of the six documents required for the EIS have been completed. The USDA has hired outside consultants to speed the process.
Two public comment periods are scheduled on the EIS. The first just closed, the second will be open in six to eight months. He said he expects the earliest the technology may be deregulated again is late 2009 or early 2010.
“This is all about choice. We want to provide you the choice to use this technology on your farm,” he said.
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russell wrote on Feb 29, 2008 10:30 PM:
Thanks for letting me voice my opion on what we are doing to ourselves Russell "