Organic Infighting over GE Alfalfa

The USDA announced recently that Roundup Ready® alfalfa is cleared to be planted anywhere in the US without restrictions. In contrast to previous GE crop approvals, this time the USDA listed three potential options, the first being no approval at all, the second, unrestricted approval, and the third, approval with certain geographic restrictions. (For some discussion on this, see Anastasia’s post on alfalfa and mine on our joint comment to the USDA.) So already, the political process with GE crop deregulation is getting more interesting, but one fascinating aspect of all this is the new and surprising level of infighting amongst opponents of genetic engineering, particularly in the Organic agriculture sector. All it took was proposing something between a blanket Yes or No – something that recognizes that all farmers have a reasonable right to grow crops as they see fit – and that the goal should be coexistence amongst all segments of agriculture.

As soon as the topic of coexistence came up. Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association fired off a shot, with USDA Recommends “Coexistence” with Monsanto? We say Hell No!

The Agriculture Department is dutifully drafting a comprehensive “coexistence policy” that supposedly will diffuse tensions between conventional (chemical but non-GMO), biotech, and organic farmers. Earlier this week industry and Administration officials met in Washington, D.C. to talk about coexistence. Even though the Organic Consumers Association tried to get into the meeting, we were told we weren’t welcome. The powers that be claim that the OCA doesn’t meet their criteria of being “stakeholders.” The unifying theme in these closed-door meetings is apparently that Monsanto and the other biotech companies will set aside a “compensation” fund to reimburse organic farmers whose crops or fields get contaminated. That way we’ll all be happy. Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dow, and Dupont will continue planting their hazardous crops and force-feeding animals and consumers with GMOs. Organic farmers and companies willing to cooperate will get a little compensation or “hush money.” But of course our response to Monsanto and the USDA’s plan, as you might have guessed, is hell no!

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More on Hybrid Hate

While the comments on Anastasia’s excellent post about the hybrid seed donation situation in Haiti continue to flow in, I thought I would make a few extra comments about the situation that I thought were interesting, and highlight some comments of others.

The first thing that occurs to me in this discussion about the hybrid seed is that there still is a lot of misinformation flying around about it. Beverly Bell, who ‘sounded the alarm’ about farmers supposedly planning to buy and then burn the donated hybrid seed, continues to make stuff up about the situation. While Monsanto never offered to donate GE seeds, Bell claims that the Haitian Agricultural Ministry rejected such an offer. Ronnie Cummins from the Organic Consumers Association assumes it to be true and expands upon the tall tale:

“Monsanto wanted initially to dump GMO seeds on Haiti, but even the corrupt Haitian government knew that this would spark a rebellion, so Monsanto cleverly decided to dump hybrid seeds instead.”

However according to Monsanto, they never offered GE seeds, ever.

Bell and Cummins both repeat the claim that hybrid seed cannot be saved, or is worthless to save. Also not true. The traits of saved hybrid seed will have a distribution of combinations of their parents’ traits, but will still grow. I would like you to watch this short video which contains an interview with an “Agronomist” named Mark who is taking part in apparent protests against Monsanto in Haiti.

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Merry Frankmas!

Franky the Snowmaize was a jolly happy soul,
With a corncob nose and icicle hair
And two eyes made out of snow.
Franky the Snowmaize is a fairy tale, they say,
He was made to grow and the farmers
Know how he came to life one day.

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