Supreme Court overturns alfalfa seed ruling

On a 7 to 1 vote, the United States Supreme Court reversed an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer that placed a nationwide injunction on planting Roundup Ready Alfalfa and barring USDA from partially deregulating Roundup Ready Alfalfa pending the court ordered environmental review.

“The good news is this decision reinforces USDA APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) as the science-based agency with sole authority on regulation, deregulation, and permitting of biotech traits in crop plants,” says Forage Genetics International president Mark McCaslin, whose organization helped develop Roundup Ready Alfalfa.

While the Supreme Court reversed the injunction, it is not full steam ahead. “What was appealed was the injunction on future plantings. That original injunction prevented USDA-APHIS from partially deregulating Roundup Ready Alfalfa while they conducted the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement),” said McCaslin. “That is where the Supreme Court said that the U.S. District Court overstepped . . . by telling USDA-APHIS what they could and could not do. This decision supports the concept that these types of decisions should be based on sound science. With the injunction going away, it is now in USDA’s domain again,” says McCaslin. “Hopefully, we are in the home stretch with the final EIS and a permanent deregulation situation.”

Short term, it is up to APHIS if they want to allow permit or partial deregulation which would allow producers to plant Roundup Ready Alfalfa. “While the Supreme Court decision is good news, it is not a green light to go out and buy and plant Roundup Ready Alfalfa seed. There would have to be action by USDA-APHIS for that,” says McCaslin. Long-term, this Supreme Court decision is not only a positive for this case involving Roundup Ready Alfalfa but what it implies for biotech traits and crops in general.

Roundup Ready alfalfa awaits two rulings

Three years have passed since a U.S. district judge in San Francisco ruled that a more thorough evaluation of potential environmental impact was needed on Roundup Ready alfalfa. That ruling took the product off the market and sent interested parties back to the drawing board in an effort to update the product's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Late last year, USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) posted the latest 1,476-page draft of the EIS online. That opened a public comment period which ran from December 18 to February 16.

Sources tell us that some 10,000 individual comments were submitted on the latest EIS this winter. Industry specialists tell Hoard's Dairyman that nearly 1,000 comments were submitted from alfalfa growers . . . the vast majority supported the conclusions of the EIS and recommended deregulation of Roundup Ready alfalfa.

APHIS is now working on a final EIS that considers new information or questions supplied by the 10,000 commenters. Those with working knowledge of the process are hopeful that a final EIS can be completed later this year. After a final EIS is published, APHIS will make a determination on deregulation. If they rule in favor of deregulation, Roundup Ready alfalfa will be back on the market soon thereafter.

On a related subject, the U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal to the broad injunction imposed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on April 27. A ruling on that portion of the case is expected by the end of June. To learn more about the reasons that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear the case, a description is given at Monsanto's website. Click the title of this blog to read it.

Comment period on Roundup Ready alfalfa begins December 18

This is a guest blog by Dan Putnum
Forage Extension Agronomist and Agricultural Program Leader
Department of Plant Sciences, the University of California

The long-awaited decision on the deregulation of glyphosate-tolerant (GT) alfalfa (Roundup Ready or RR alfalfa) has been made.USDA-APHIS, which regulates biotechnology traits, has completed a Draft Environmental impact Statement (EIS) and posted this on its website. This was required by a legal decision in March of 2007 due to a lawsuit brought by Center for Food Safety.

Their decision:
“ APHIS has made a preliminary determination that action should be taken, and that action will be to grant nonregulated status to GT alfalfa lines J101 and J163, in whole. The introduction of these GT alfalfa lines has no significant impact on the environment. These GT alfalfa plants, lines J101 and J163, are not plant pests and are unlikely to pose plant pest risks.”

It is time for you to weigh in and provide comments to APHIS on their preliminary decision – should they be supported in this decision to allow commercialization of this trait (nonregulation), or should it continue to be regulated (not allow commercialization)? Have they addressed the important issues associated with this technology?

There are a range of issues associated with this, but primarily it comes down to:
• The claim that this trait causes excessive gene-flow to organic or conventional alfalfa fields which will prevent organic or conventional growers from farming as they wish and lead to eventual contamination of all alfalfa fields.
• The claim that the introduction of this trait causes much larger development of Roundup-resistant weeds which will have an impact on the environment.

These were the two most critical issues in the lawsuit and the important issues that APHIS needed to address, along with market impacts.

Those who disagree with these claims argue that:
• Gene flow is primarily an issue with seed production (<1% of the acreage), and can be (and is) managed with isolation requirements in seed production. In hay crops, gene flow is largely prevented, since hay is mostly harvested before significant bloom. Techniques such as managing feral alfalfa and testing products using a simple test strip can assure customers of the non-GE status of hay or seed.
• Weed resistance to herbicides is an old problem with agriculture and not unique to RR alfalfa and can be managed through diverse weed management strategies that have been developed over many years by weed scientists. If it occurs, it will primarily have an impact on the effectiveness of Roundup, not the environment.

UC (University of California) and other universities have detailed publications on both of these issues, on gene flow and on weed resistance; see link below.

APHIS has extensive documentation of their study of these issues, plus related market issues in the EIS statement. Please see their website below. The EIS alone is 1,476 pages long, with documentation, but the critical issues can be easily found.

We should keep in mind that this decision will impact the use of all genetically engineered crops in general, for alfalfa in the future (not just RR alfalfa), and perhaps for other crops, as well.

Time to make your voice heard.

You may review the APHIS documents by starting here:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/biotechnology/alfalfa.shtml

Several University of California Documents related to biotechnology, coexistence of alfalfa types, and weed resistance can be seen at:
http://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/+producing/index.aspx?cat=Biotechnology%20and%20Roundup%20Ready%20Alfalfa

The National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance documents on coexistence and seed stewardship, which came out of workshops over the past three years are at: http://www.alfalfa.org/CSCoexistenceDocs.html

To SUBMIT COMMENTS TO USDA-APHIS, SEE
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480a6b7a1

To see a longer listing of previous comments (2008), which includes the recent entries, see:
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#docketDetail?R=APHIS-2007-0044