Monsanto’s GM alfalfa contaminates Washington crops
Rady AnandaActivist Post
An eastern Washington field has been contaminated with Roundup Ready alfalfa, the state Ag Department confirmed on Friday. The farmer reports he did not plant it, nor wants it.
Of course we knew this was going to happen. Alfalfa seeds are only 2mm in size and can spread for miles on the wind alone. The Oregon crew who sabotaged the GM beet fields in June didn’t go far enough.
Alfalfa is planted on 17 million acres in the US and earns over $8 billion a year, reports Reuters, adding:
Exports of hay, including alfalfa, have been rising, hitting a record $1.25 billion in 2012, according to the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Washington state is one of the largest producers of alfalfa for export.Alfalfa is the most common forage used for grazing, and the organic meat and dairy industries are dependent on GMO-free hay.
Not only the organic industry, but biotech’s inability to contain their product is also economically sabotaging export farmers who use chemicals, but not GM seeds.
If we don’t stop the federal government from favoring the “death tech” industry (as Vandana Shiva calls it), all our food will be genetically modified, whether they label it or not, whether we like it or not.
When Bayer’s GM rice contaminated a third of all US rice in 2006, no regulator stopped them: not the USDA, the EPA nor even the judicial system.
“Regulators” are “still investigating” the GM wheat contamination in Oregon last May. The $8 billion wheat export business took a hit this year, and will likely suffer next year, thanks to another act of economic sabotage, the blame for which falls squarely on Monsanto, the company that brought us Agent Orange.
But, throwing money at the problem won’t fix it: Federal “regulators” and the biotech industry are contaminating all natural crops, whether we like it or not. This problem will not go away without serious intervention, because they do not want it to: this is the plan. The GM experiment started here, and contamination is worse here than anywhere else.
“Regulators” have allowed GM crops to be planted in our wildlife refuges. Our refuges! The source of vast biodiversity, where pollinators caught a break from all the chemical farms. No more. Biotech’s nasty chemicals see to that. Oh, sure, we won a partial victory back in 2011, when the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) agreed to yank GM plants from 11 Northeast states. In 2012, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, et al. got two dozen Southeastern refuges to be GM-free. The same plaintiffs just filed suit last month, again against the FWS, for allowing GM crops in refuges in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Minnesota.
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Washington state alfalfa crop may be contaminated with genetic modification
Farmer in Washington state reports his alfalfa shipment was rejected after testing positive for genetic modification
- theguardian.com, Thursday 12 September 2013 17.34 EDT
A healthy crop of mature alfalfa ready for cutting in North Carolina. Photo: Alamy
The investigation was ordered after a farmer in Washington state reported that his alfalfa shipments had been rejected for export after testing positive for genetic modification. Results were expected as early as Friday.
If confirmed, it would be the second known case of GM contamination in a major American crop since May, when university scientists confirmed the presence of a banned GM wheat growing in a farmer's field in Oregon.
The suspected outbreak comes in the run-up to a ballot measure in Washington state that would require mandatory labelling of all GM foods.
Alfalfa is America's fourth largest crop, behind corn, wheat and soybeans, and the main feedstock for the dairy industry. A confirmed case of contamination could hurt the organic dairy industry, which is now worth $26bn a year, forcing farmers to find new sources of GM-free feed. It could also hurt a growing export industry. Alfalfa is increasingly sold for export but buyers, such as Japan, do not want GM products.
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