Panel kills modified-alfalfa bill

By Bill Harlan, Journal staff | Wednesday, February 07, 2007

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PIERRE — A state Senate committee killed an attempt to ban genetically modified alfalfa in South Dakota, but state Agriculture Secretary Larry Gabriel warned that farmers who plant it could face lawsuits.

“This is all about liability,” Gabriel said, though he did not speak in favor of the proposed ban.

The Senate Agriculture Committee voted 6-3 to deny the ban a vote of the full Senate after representatives from farm groups testified that the engineered alfalfa was safe, nutritious and useful. Associations of South Dakota corn, wheat and soybean growers were against the ban.

“I’m for Roundup Ready Alfalfa,” Cody Hostler, assistant agronomy manager at Midwest Cooperatives in Pierre, told the committee. “There is a demand for it, and there is a fit for it.”

Roundup Ready Alfalfa was engineered by Monsanto to withstand applications of Roundup herbicide, which kills the weeds without killing the alfalfa crop.

Hostler said a grower in Belle Fourche had recovered 20 acres overgrown with Canadian thistle by planting Roundup Alfalfa then spraying. Now, he has “a beautiful stand of alfalfa.”

State Sen. Kenneth McNenny, R-Sturgis, however, disagreed.

McNenny, who is a member of the agriculture committee, sponsored SB188, which would have banned the sale, planting or harvesting of Roundup Ready Alfalfa.

McNenny warned that genetically modified alfalfa, through cross-pollination, could permanently contaminate standard alfalfa or organic alfalfa in nearby fields.

“If you let all of the toothpaste out of the tube and you decide, maybe I shouldn’t have done that, how are you going to get it back in the tube?” McNenny asked.

Pat Trask, who ranches and farms north of Wasta, urged the committee to ban the product.

Trask Family Seeds sells throughout the country to customers who count on the purity and quality of seeds. Genetically modified seeds have more fiber, he said, and genetic changes are irreversible. “This is a serious threat to the conventional alfalfa seed industry,” he said.

Trask pointed out that alfalfa is a perennial, meaning the plants come back year after year. Genetically modified alfalfa can continue to cross-pollinate for a decade or more. “This is a serious problem, he said.

Trask has even joined a lawsuit against the U.S. Agriculture Department, trying to stop the use of Roundup Ready Alfalfa until environmental studies are complete.

The USDA approved the Roundup Alfalfa in 2005.

Hostler said, “Just about every county in the state has a little bit planted in it.”

Matthew Fanta of Forage Genetics, a Minnesota company licensed to sell the product, said 137 growers in South Dakota had already planted 4,000 acres of Roundup Ready Alfalfa.

That came as news to Sen. Jim Lintz, R-Hermosa, who also is on the agriculture committee and who also voted for the ban. “I think it’s appalling,” he said.

In December 2005 Trask and others began urging a ban in meetings with Gabriel and legislators, including Lintz. “Here I thought we were determining if it was safe for South Dakota, and it was already being done,” Lintz said.

Secretary Gabriel also said he was surprised to learn within the last few days that Roundup Ready Alfalfa was being planted throughout the state.

Last year Gabriel negotiated a “use agreement” with Monsanto requiring that Roundup alfalfa be harvested at “10 percent bloom” to minimize the spread of pollen. “If you can’t follow that strict retirement, you shouldn’t plant it,” Gabriel said.

But the regulations weren’t completed until last fall, Gabriel said — apparently long after planting had started.

Though he stopped short of endorsing the ban, Gabriel warned the committee, “Growers who plant Roundup Ready Alfalfa where alfalfa seed is being produced are possibly incurring civil liability if that pollen flows to those neighboring fields and makes that alfalfa seed that they’re raising less marketable.”

Fanta said the risk of contamination was low and almost zero beyond 300 feet. He added, “Zero tolerance is not an attainable goal for the U.S. seed industry.”

Trask said Roundup Ready Alfalfa could spread modified genes, through cross-pollinating, at a rate of 2-1/2 miles a year. “If you don’t protect this, you’re going to lose one of the biggest seed cows that ever was,” he said.

After the hearing, Trask said he was expecting a decision on his lawsuit soon from a federal judge in California.

Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com