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From: Laurel Hopwood <
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To: CONS-SPST-BIOTECH-FORUM <
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Sent: Mon, Jan 18, 2016 10:05 am
Subject: New study finds genetically engineered alfalfa has gone wild, exposing failure of “coexistence” policy
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/blog/4207/new-study-finds-genetically-engineered-alfalfa-has-gone-wild-exposing-failure-of-coexistence-policy#
New study finds genetically engineered alfalfa has gone wild, exposing
failure of “coexistence” policy
By Bill Freese
Center for Food Safety
January 13, 2016
(edited)
A recent study by USDA scientists shows that GE alfalfa has gone wild,
in a big way, in alfalfa-growing parts of the West. This feral GE
alfalfa may help explain a number of transgenic contamination episodes
over the past few years that have cost American alfalfa growers and
exporters millions of dollars in lost revenue. And it also exposes the
failure of USDA’s “coexistence” policy for GE and traditional crops.
The USDA has long maintained that GE crops can co-exist with traditional
and organic agriculture. According to this “co-existence” narrative, if
neighboring GE and traditional farmers just sort things out among
themselves and follow “best management practices,” transgenes will be
confined to GE crops and the fields where they are planted.
The latest evidence refuting USDA’s co-existence fairytale comes from a
recently published study by a team of USDA scientists.
In 2013, a Washington State farmer’s alfalfa was rejected by a broker
after testing revealed transgenic contamination. In 2014, China
rejected numerous U.S. alfalfa shipments that tested positive for the
Roundup Ready gene. Alfalfa exports to China, a major market that has
zero tolerance for GE alfalfa, fell dramatically. U.S. hay prices fell,
and at least three U.S. alfalfa exporters suffered many millions of
dollars in losses.
What’s needed now is not more studies to tell us in finer detail what we
already know, but regulatory action. Yet the USDA – which is
embarrassingly subservient to the biotechnology industry – has failed to
voluntarily enact a single restriction on GE crop growers. This forces
traditional farmers to bear the entire burden of preventing transgenic
contamination.
Because of federal inaction, citizens have taken action to protect their
traditional agriculture at the county level. Center for Food Safety
(CFS) has provided critical assistance to these efforts. For instance,
in 2014 voters in Jackson County, Oregon, passed an ordinance
prohibiting cultivation of GE crops in their county. CFS helped the
county and its farmers fend off a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the
Ordinance brought by two GE alfalfa growers with financial backing from
the biotechnology industry.
Similar “GE-free zones” have been created with CFS assistance in at
least seven other counties in California, Washington, Hawaii and a
second county in Oregon. CFS is also proud to support a new ordinance
introduced in November of last year in Costilla County, Colorado, that
would establish a GMO-Free Zone to protect locally bred heirloom maize
from transgenic contamination.
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