April 25, 2010
By Philip Brasher
Des Moines Register

Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Supreme Court is considering genetically engineered crops for the first time, in a case that has divided conventional and organic farmers.

The justices will hear oral arguments Tuesday on a lower court's ruling that halted the sale of biotech alfalfa seeds that were developed by Monsanto Co. and briefly sold to farmers after getting government approval.

The biotech industry, including Monsanto and Johnston-based Pioneer Hi-Bred, and organizations representing conventional farmers argue that the case could stifle the development of biotech crop varieties, unless the justices make it harder to block the sale of the seeds.

Farmers would be hesitant to start using some new biotech products if they're worried a court could stop the crop varieties after they've gone on the market, said Danielle Quist, an attorney for the American Farm Bureau Federation. "For farmers who want to use any sort of biotechnology trait, if they can't rely on a decision made by USDA to regulate a product that is put out there, then they may not want to use it," she said.

The impact on individual crops and companies could vary. Pioneer's biotech work focuses on corn and soybeans. Company officials say they are concerned about delays they are already seeing in getting new biotech crop varieties approved. But they also say they have improved the data they give the USDA and don't expect the court case itself to have a major impact.

Organic food companies, growers and environmental organizations say the federal government hasn't regulated the crops tightly enough. They say regulators are allowing biotech seeds to go on the market before enough is known about their impact on the environment or on farmers who have to keep their crops uncontaminated by gene-altered varieties.

Organic milk, one of the strongest products in the organic sector, is especially vulnerable, because farmers feed their cows alfalfa hay. A loss of organic hay would "irreparably cripple organic dairy producers," the industry groups said.

Dan Specht, who raises organic beef cattle near McGregor, is concerned that organic alfalfa seed and hay will be more expensive. "I can see in the future that it would be impossible to get pure seed," he said.

A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences said the proliferation of biotech crops had made it harder for farmers to produce organic and other non-biotech crops that were free from any contamination by genetically modified varieties.

Monsanto's biotech alfalfa is engineered to survive being treated with Roundup herbicide, making it easier for farmers to control weeds. Similar varieties of Roundup Ready soybeans, corn and cotton have been in wide use for years.

Some alfalfa seed growers are worried that their non-biotech crops would be contaminated by the biotech variety. They sued to end the sale of the gene-altered alfalfa, and a federal judge stopped the sale of the seeds in 2007, two years after the seeds went on the market. The judge ordered the USDA to do a more thorough environmental analysis of the crop's potential impact.

Among other things, the judge said USDA officials had failed to adequately consider whether farmers growing non-biotech alfalfa can protect their crops from cross-pollinating with the gene-altered variety.

The USDA has since finished the environmental study and is moving once again toward approving the crop for commercial use. But Monsanto says the judge was wrong to force the seeds off the market without investigating the issue itself and looking for a way to address the interests of farmers who wanted to keep buying the seeds.

Another judge recently ruled that the department's review of biotech sugar beets was insufficient. Like the alfalfa, the sugar beets are immune to Roundup. The rulings don't affect other Roundup-tolerant crops, including soybeans and corn.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the seed industry, the Farm Bureau and several commodity groups warned that such court rulings amount to de facto bans on biotechnology and "dramatically increase the degree of uncertainty surrounding the availability of genetically engineered crops."

Organic farmers can protect their crops from being contaminated with biotech varieties the same way growers of popcorn or seed corn have protected their crops from being cross-pollinated, such as by seeding fields so they pollinate at a different time than the neighboring crops.

"Agriculture has successfully managed these things for decades," said Jeff Rowe, vice president of biotech affairs for Pioneer.

The problem for the organic industry is that while federal rules don't require organic crops to be free of biotech contamination, some companies do, and that forces organic farmers to keep their crops as pure as possible.

Before the court order blocked the sale of the alfalfa variety, 5,550 growers planted the seed on 236,000 acres nationwide, according to Monsanto. Alfalfa is typically grown on about 23 million acres.

The biotech seeds won't be for everyone, even if they go back on the market. One of the farmers who tried them was Dick Kleis, a dairy producer near Zwingle, south of Dubuque. He said the seeds worked just as advertised.

He sprayed the field with Roundup after planting and wiped out the weeds. The only problem is that the absence of weeds left some of the ground around the young alfalfa exposed and soil washed away, he said. Now, he just lets his young cattle graze on the weeds that come up, and once the alfalfa matures, additional weeds don't have a place to grow.

"I have a really good (alfalfa) stand that I'm looking at right now that's not Roundup Ready," he said, as he talked on his cell phone from his fields. "It's beautiful. I don't see a weed in it."


http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100425/BUSINESS01/4250320/-1/GO4AJAX/Biotech-crops-go-before-Supreme-Court-this-week