The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Thursday that it has completed the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) Monsanto’s (NYSE: MON) genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready (RR) alfalfa.
The FEIS comes in response to a 2007 lawsuit brought by the Center for Food Safety (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 and the development of “superweeds” that are resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide, Roundup.
The court banned the planting of GE alfalfa until USDA completed a rigorous analysis 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.
The FEIS sets forth USDA’s plans to once again allow commercial planting of GE alfalfa, according the CFS. According to the group, the FEIS gives USDA three options for RR alfalfa–its two preferred options are to either completely deregulate the crop, allowing it to be grown anywhere or impose geographic restrictions and isolation requirements limiting where the crop can be grown. Another still possible option is to continue the ban on the crop because of its environmental and economic impacts.
“The only option that will protect organic and conventional alfalfa growers and dairies is for the USDA to deny any approval of GE alfalfa” stated Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety (CFS). “We are disappointed that the agency has not made this one of its preferred options but are encouraged that it remains an option being considered by the agency.”
On a call Thursday with CFS and other stakeholders, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said that USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will be submitting the EIS to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for publication in the Federal Register. USDA anticipates that EPA will publish a notice in the Federal Register on December 23, 2010 announcing the availability of the final EIS on RR alfalfa for public review. There will be a 30-day “review period” for the FEIS, in which comments can be submitted for consideration by APHIS, before USDA publishes a record of decision on how it will proceed.
In response to USDA’s Draft EIS, published nearly a year ago, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), joined by 49 other representatives and five other senators, sent a letter to Secretary Vilsack asking USDA to retain the regulated status of genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa. In their letter, endorsed by over 50 businesses and organizations the lawmakers assert that the draft USDA findings about genetically engineered alfalfa cannot be justified.
In March 2010, more than 244,000 people submitted comments to the USDA critiquing the substance and conclusions of its Draft EIS on GE Alfalfa. Groups, including CFS, the National Organic Coalition (NOC), Organic Consumers Association, Food & Water Watch, CREDO Action and Food Democracy Now, mobilized their communities to help generate the unprecedented number of comments. In addition, more than 300 public interest organizations, farmers, dairies, retailers and organic food producers from the U.S. and Canada delivered a strongly worded letter to USDA, calling upon it to deny approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered, Roundup Ready alfalfa (GE alfalfa).
CFS said it is currently reviewing the USDA decision and will make further comments once the documents have been thoroughly reviewed and when the agency makes its final decision.
The Final EIS and related documents can be found at the link below.
A similar battle over GE sugar beets is also underway, with a federal court earlier this month ordering the destruction of seedlings, which were planted in September despite an injunction.
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Not only will this harm natural alfalfa, but any organic meat, if alfalfa is their diet. When is our government going to protect its people instead of big business.
ONION HEADLINE: USDOA SAYS “KEEP BLACK AND WHITE COWS SEPARATE”
USDOA Secretary Tim Vilesack says you can’t raise black cows in counties with registered Charolais (white cow breed) herds because even barbed wire is no match for a love-sick black bull. In recent public statements, Vilesack has said he does not want to have the fabric of rural America torn up over this and neighbors need to keep gene pools pure as well as coexist.
After issuing a 23,000 page report on how cows make love and the consequences of such activity, USDOA’s Vilesack said one of the preferred options for allowing the peaceful coexistence of black and white cows is segregation. Vilesack is expected to say that black and white cows are equal in importance to US agriculture, but they must be kept separate and we need to do that voluntarily rather than having court-ordered segregation to protect the genetic purity of white cows, which make up less than two percent of the US herd.
Vilesack has called for a meeting of both black and white cow farmers to have a dialogue on the best way to resolve this by combining the best ideas from a diverse set of viewpoints.
In other USDOA News, the USDOA-ARSE has completed a study on how USDOA can use “humanure” made by composting the feces of its employees to fertilize the People’s Organic Garden at the department of agriculture.
Again, what a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money….brought to you by the center for food safety
The whole basis of this lawsuit is that organic agriculture organizations have arbitrarily decided that a gene derived from biotechnology cannot be allowed in organic agriculture. There’s no actual sense behind this decision since it pays no attention to the actual nature of the genes in question. They make no such complaint about other genes derived by gamma radiation, chemical treatments, tissue culture, etc. Of course, they have the right to define organic any way they like, but do they then have the right to claim that they would be harmed by cross-pollination and that it is not their own responsibility to take steps to prevent such cross-pollination? This is like me deciding that I don’t want any Polish people in my family and seeking laws to keep Polish people from living in my neighborhood on the grounds that they might marry one of my children.
Lets seee…. Herbicide, insecticide, BIOcide, and biosustainability.. seems like a straightforward contradiction to me. Also, I would like to quote an academic who made a comment for the EIS… it went like this: A retired academic provided his concerns about the use of glyphosate. He believes that
glyphosate:
? Increases disease, reduces nutritional quality, and enhances environmental degradation
? Increases the population of Fusarium and other soilborne pathogens
? Extends host range of pathogens
? Is released into the soil environment through plant root exudates where it is toxic to many
beneficial soil microorganisms
? Persistence in some soils from common “weed burn down” applications is well
documented and countries have a recommended delay period on the label before planting
a susceptible crop
? Residual levels inhibit root uptake of the essential micronutrient manganese, and greatly
restrict translocation of copper, iron, manganese, and zinc
F-14
? Resistant genes reduces the uptake or efficiency of Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn that are essential
trace mineral nutrients for plants, animals, and humans