Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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USDA Decision On GE Alfalfa Leaves Door Open For Contamination, Rise Of 
Superweeds
Washington, D.C. – January 27, 2011 –
http://www.savenmseeds.org/
ROGUE AGENCY CHOOSES “BUSINESS AS USUAL” OVER SOUND SCIENCE

CENTER ANNOUNCES IMMEDIATE LEGAL CHALLENGE TO USDA’S FLAWED ASSESSMENT

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-room/press-releases/


The Center for Food Safety criticized the announcement today by the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture (USDA) that it will once again allow unlimited, 
nation-wide commercial planting of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) 
Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite the many risks to organic and conventional 
farmers USDA acknowledged in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). 
 On a call today with stakeholders, Secretary Vilsack reiterated the concerns 
surrounding purity and access to non-GE seed, yet the Agency’s decision still 
places the entire burden for preventing contamination on non-GE farmers, with 
no protections for food producers, consumers and exporters.

“We’re disappointed with USDA’s decision and we will be back in court 
representing the interest of farmers, preservation of the environment, and 
consumer choice” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for 
Food Safety. “USDA has become a rogue agency in its regulation of biotech 
crops and its decision to appease the few companies who seek to benefit from 
this technology comes despite increasing evidence that GE alfalfa will 
threaten the rights of farmers and consumers, as well as damage the 
environment.”
On Monday, the Center sent an open letter to Secretary Vilsack calling on 
USDA to base its decision on sound science and the interests of farmers, and 
to avoid rushing the process to meet the marketing timelines or sales targets 
of Monsanto, Forage Genetics or other entities.
CFS also addressed several key points that were not properly assessed in the 
FEIS, among them were:

    * Liability, Implementation and Oversight — Citing over 200 past 
contamination episodes that have cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars 
in lost sales, CFS demands that liability for financial losses incurred by 
farmers due to transgenic contamination be assigned to the crop developers.  
CFS also calls on USDA to take a more active oversight role to ensure that 
any stewardship plans are properly implemented and enforced.
    * Roundup Ready alfalfa will substantially increase herbicide use – 
USDA’s assessment misrepresented conventional alfalfa as utilizing more 
herbicides than it does, which in turn provided a false rationale for 
introducing herbicide-promoting Roundup Ready alfalfa.  In fact, USDA’s own 
data shows that just 7% of alfalfa hay acres are treated with herbicides.  
USDA’s projections in the FEIS show that substantial adoption of Roundup 
Ready alfalfa would trigger large increases in herbicide use of up to 23 
million lbs. per year.
    * Harms from glyphosate-resistant weeds – USDA’s sloppy and unscientific 
treatment of glyphosate-resistant (GR) weeds ignored the significant 
contribution that RR alfalfa could make to their rapid evolution.  USDA 
failed to analyze how GR weeds fostered by currently grown RR crops are 
increasing herbicide use; spurring more use of soil-eroding tillage; and 
reducing farmer income through increased weed control costs, an essential 
baseline analysis.

“We in the farm sector are dissatisfied but not surprised at the lack of 
courage from USDA to stop Roundup Ready alfalfa and defend family farmers,” 
said Pat Trask, conventional alfalfa grower and plaintiff in the alfalfa 
litigation.
The FEIS comes in response to a 2007 lawsuit brought by CFS, in which a 
federal court ruled that the USDA’s approval of GE alfalfa violated 
environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of 
conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant 
weeds, and increased use of glyphosate herbicide, sold by Monsanto as 
Roundup.  The Court banned new plantings of GE alfalfa until USDA completed a 
more comprehensive assessment of these impacts. The Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on GE alfalfa planting.  In June 
2010, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready 
Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation occurs.
“Last spring more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the USDA highly 
critical of the substance and conclusions of its Draft EIS on GE Alfalfa,” 
said Kimbrell.  “Clearly the USDA was not listening to the public or farmers 
but rather to just a handful of corporations.”

#  #  #

The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization 
founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the 
use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and 
other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents over 175,000 
members across the nation.



History of the Farmer Liability Bill    PDF     Print   E-mail
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How did legislation for farmer liability protection get started?



In 2008, Senator Bernadette Sanchez introduced Senate Bill 60 for “NMSU Chile 
Harvesting and Genetic Research.” The bill was “an act making an 
appropriation for research on mechanical harvesting and genetic engineering 
of chile at New Mexico State University.” The requested amount of the 
appropriation? $1million starting in 2009 and recurring.



Click here to go to the original bill and the fiscal impact report:
(http://www.nmlegis.gov/lcs/_session.aspx?chamber=S&legtype=B&legno=%20%2060&year=08)



Biotechnology companies have been creating and patenting genetically 
engineered (GE) seeds, most which are resistant to herbicides. Farmers that 
plant these GE seeds enter into contracts with the seed manufacturer, usually 
a biotech company. The contract specifies that these GE seeds cannot be saved 
and replanted.



Chile is a staple crop in New Mexico. Many farmers, large and small, save 
their seeds to replant. What happens if a farmers saves their seeds and do 
not know they have been contaminated by GE chile?  The following year, 
unknowingly, they plant these contaminated seeds with the GE traits? Then 
what?



GE crops can cross-pollinate and contaminate neighboring fields. Biotech 
companies have sued these neighboring growers for “stealing” their patented 
seeds. Most lawsuits have been settled out of court with the farmers signing 
confidentiality agreements to not discuss what has happened to them.



In response, various agricultural groups, consumer advocates, farmers and 
ranchers created the Save NM Seeds Coalition to help pass legislation to 
protect innocent farmers from being sued for possession of a GE product, if 
it was unintended. This resulted in efforts to pass legislation in 2009, 2010 
and once again, now in 2011.

HB46 and SB51 Updates