The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) is close to making a decision to register a genetically modified (GM) alfalfa variety developed by Monsanto.Why should you be concerned about this? After all, alfalfa is hay right? And none of us eat hay?
Well actually we do. We eat more of it than many of us realise.
Alfalfa is a forage crop, which is used as animal feed. So indirectly alfalfa ends up in the pork chop or T-bone steak that you pick up at the grocery store or in the hamburger and possibly the fries that you buy at MacDonald’s.
Wait a minute? The fries too?
Yes, because alfalfa is also a valuable crop that is increasingly grown as part of a diverse crop rotation by many farmers seeking to reduce their costs by reducing pesticide and herbicide use.
Alfalfa helps them to do that by providing a break in the cycle of crops like wheat, canola or barley which helps to disrupt potential weed, disease and/or pest cycles that can occur by growing only one or a few varieties of crops all the time. This in turn means far less chemicals will be needed to solve these problems in subsequent crops. This is an important weapon for farmers that can help their bottom line and also the environment.
Alfalfa also helps to prevent other crops from developing resistance to the pesticides and herbicides that farmers use to control weeds, disease and pests, which means that newer, stronger chemicals will not need to be developed.
The fact is we are not going to stop chemical use in agriculture any time soon, but any natural measures that can be taken to help minimize their use is beneficial.
So alfalfa has benefits beyond just providing food for animals, and another is the fact that it provides food for the soil.
Alfalfa replaces essential nitrogen in the soil that has been depleted by other crops. The only other way to replace this crucial element, that is essential to agricultural production, is with the use of chemical fertilisers. So again, alfalfa is a natural way to reduce that usage, put more money back into the hands of farmers and help the environment.
If we take all of this a step further, organic (and/or natural) farmers use alfalfa in exactly the same way and for the same reasons as conventional farmers. In other words, for all the reasons I have just discussed. Alfalfa is their natural weed suppressant, disease and pest disruptor and soil fertiliser. For them it is a vitally important crop, as they cannot resort to the chemical alternatives available to conventional farmers.
So, as you can see, alfalfa is a staple, versatile crop that has many important uses for any type of farmer.
But the USDA is using the consumer as the excuse for allowing the registration of GM alfalfa. A recent report issued by the USDA makes the claim that not enough consumers care about organic foods to justify it blocking the registration of Monsanto’s GM alfalfa.
This is blatantly absurd. Consumers of organic foods buy them because they want reassurances about what has not gone into them (i.e. pesticides and genetically modified organisms). They have collectively formed a loud enough voice to prevent many GM crops from being introduced in Europe, Asia, Canada and the US, (notably GM wheat which was withdrawn from the registration process in 2004 by Monsanto because of widespread, global market resistance to it).
Recently a deregistered GM flax variety was found in Canadian flax shipments, which resulted in the suspension of all flax shipments to both Europe and Asia for months, dealing a terrible blow to flax growers in this country. That is not a position that other farmers want to find themselves in.
The market resistance to GM products, which is firmly established in major markets like Europe and Asia, is of great concern to farmers across the world. If GM alfalfa is introduced onto the marketplace it will pose a serious threat to both organic and conventional farmers.
The trait that is genetically engineered into these crops is a resistance to herbicides, so that farmers can use specific chemicals to kill weeds whilst leaving the crop itself untouched.
Unfortunately, as in the case of GM canola, a crop that has become the dominant variety now grown worldwide, that resistance has proven hard to contain once released into the field. Farmers are increasingly having problems with “volunteer” canola plants which are appearing in subsequent non-canola crops and which cannot be killed by spraying. I wonder who stands to gain from having a variety of super-weeds out there? Not farmers or consumers that’s for sure.
So we come to the basis of consumer resistance to GM foods, because they want to maintain a choice between crops that have been grown conventionally (with chemicals) and those that have not, and GM traits make that a much harder line of distinction to maintain and risk the contamination of the whole supply system with GM food ingredients.
This is why we should all be concerned about the introduction of GM alfalfa and should urge the USDA not to allow it. The following website contains a petition it is urging all concerned consumers to sign to try and prevent this from happening.
http://www.freshthemovie.com/blog/
Please sign this petition to prevent registration of GM alfalfa and pass this post on to anyone who you feel may not be fully aware of some of these issue.
Copyright2010, Angela Lovell.
Canola picture from http://www.percyschmeiser.com/contamination.htm
