3. Monsanto loses again: GE alfalfa banned nationwide
A
federal court has upheld a ban on the planting of Monsanto's genetically
engineered (GE) alfalfa in the United States. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit reaffirmed its previous ruling that the alfalfa, which is engineered to
tolerate the herbicide Roundup, could contaminate conventional and organic
alfalfa and thus cause "irreversible harm" to the farmers whose livelihoods
depend on these crops and to the environment. In the original lawsuit, the
Center for Food Safety, other nonprofit organizations, and two alfalfa seed
producers sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for approving GE
alfalfa without preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) as required by
federal law. After the district court issued its original ruling in 2008 to ban
the alfalfa, Monsanto and another biotechnology company appealed the ban, but
their appeal was denied in this final ruling. The ban will remain in place until
the USDA completes the EIS. Read
more from Reuters, or
read the decision (pdf).