Court stops sales, planting of genetically engineered alfalfa

First ban on GE seed a victory for conventional and organic producers

Federal District Judge Charles Breyer vacated the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 2005 approval of genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa in March, and ordered an immediate halt to seed sales.

A month earlier, Judge Breyer found that USDA’s approval of the crop ignored the harm contaminated alfalfa would do to growers and consumers of GE-free alfalfa. The Center for Food Safety, WORC, Dakota Resource Council, two alfalfa seed growers and other consumer and family farm groups sued USDA last year for approving GE alfalfa without studying the potential harm in an Environmental Impact Statement.

“[F]or those farmers who choose to grow non-genetically engineered alfalfa, the possibility that their crops will be infected with the engineered gene is tantamount to the elimination of all alfalfa; they cannot grow their chosen crop,” Judge Breyer found.

GE-free alfalfa grower harmed by Monsanto’s engineered crop

“We cannot afford the expensive testing needed to prove our seed hasn’t been contaminated by Monsanto’s,” said Blaine Schmaltz, a Rugby, ND, farmer and Dakota Resource Council member. “The release of GE alfalfa has disrupted our overseas sprouting markets, domestic seed sales, and domestic feed supply for organic dairies and livestock.”

Monsanto and Forage Genetics, developers and marketers of the seed, claim that 200,000 acres of Roundup Ready alfalfa have been planted. That is less than 1% of the 23 million acres of alfalfa in the U.S. Alfalfa hay and seed is worth $8 billion per year, making it the country’s third most valuable and fourth most widely grown crop.

“The decision rejects Monsanto’s claims that transgenic crops are safe for the environment,” said Dean Hulse, Fargo, N.D., spokesperson for Dakota Resource Council and WORC.

Studies show contaminated alfalfa miles from Roundup Ready fields

Judge Breyer found that plaintiffs’ concerns that Roundup Ready alfalfa will contaminate natural and organic alfalfa are valid, and that USDA’s opposing arguments were “not convincing.” A Colorado State University Extension study last summer found contaminated alfalfa at 83% of the sites it tested on roadsides, abandoned fields, and at the edges of active hay fields. Honey bees carried contaminated pollen as far as 1.7 miles from the Roundup Ready alfalfa field (the most distant site the researchers tested). The percentage of contaminated seed at the sites ranged from 0.2% to almost 10%.

In December, the Idaho Alfalfa and Seed Clover Association reported that genetically engineered alfalfa had contaminated conventional alfalfa seed in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, including a field of foundation seed used to grow-out seed for sale to alfalfa seed producers. Seed from that field, in Idaho—a mile and a half from the nearest engineered alfalfa field—was 0.2% contaminated, rendering it useless as foundation seed.

USDA argued that it did not have to address the economic risks to organic and conventional growers. But the judge found that “the economic effects on the organic and conventional farmers of the government’s deregulation decision are interrelated with, and, indeed, a direct result of, the effect on the physical environment.”

Judge Breyer called USDA’s failure to address the problem of Roundup-resistant “superweeds” that could follow commercial planting of GE alfalfa “a cavalier response,” and disagreed with USDA’s assertion that alfalfa exports would not be harmed.

Judge Breyer will hold another hearing and is expected to decide whether to impose a permanent injunction in late April.

—John Smillie