# New lawsuit filed over GM Alfalfa



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

http://www.slashfood.com/2011/03/22/new-lawsuit-filed-over-gmo-alfalfa/

Contamination From Genetically Modified Alfalfa Certain, Experts Say

Here it goes again. Regards, Mike


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## Cozyacres (Jul 16, 2009)

My question is: do we really NEED another RR crop to make Monsanto richer?


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

...not ever before in history has there been a corporation attack it's end users with such prejudice, and some still flock to them. The only money Monsanto will ever see from me will be lisencing fees from a competitor's product, and even that is VERY rare. I hope somebody with deep pockets goes after them. And in the video clip in that link, the things that are warned about is more or less what happend in the Canadian west with canola, so it can happen.
There have also been reports recently about the delicate and very strictly regulated identity preserved soybean market being in some small amount of jepordy following the discovery of the RR gene in a shipment to Japan or the European Union or somewhere else...


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Now to be fair, not every alfalfa hay grower is precocked in the against roundup mode. RR alfalfa has a reasonable place in the market. There is at the very least one commercial alfalfa grown with more ground tied up in pivot tracks than I have in hay ground. 
If you are like me and do not see where you will be benefited by RR Alfalfa, just leave it alone. 
Except for all the idiotic rules involved I would plant a 10 foot strip next to my neighbor planting corn. Then he could feel comfortable with his outside spray tip over the property line, getting all his weeds. As it is now if I want his weeds on the row next to the line I have to spray it myself. My weed management would not be effected as I would continue with my current preemerge weed management program.

Unfortunately most of the negative comments are from people with out a dog in the fight. My dog is not in this fight, my ox has not been gored. I do not have an aggrieved minority mentality. 
Add to the mix most of the concerns are phony concerns & bad biology.


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## Cozyacres (Jul 16, 2009)

I will leave it alone, but will it leave me alone, when my neighbors RR alfalfa contaminates mine

]Unfortunately most of the negative comments are from people with out a dog in the fight. My do is not in this fight, my ox has not been gored. I do not have an aggrieved minority mentality. 
Add to the mix most of the concerns are phony concerns & bad biology.[/QUOTE]

Then who should we believe Monsanto?


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## nwks baler (Jul 18, 2008)

cozyacres said:


> I will leave it alone, but will it leave me alone, when my neighbors RR alfalfa contaminates mine
> 
> ]Unfortunately most of the negative comments are from people with out a dog in the fight. My do is not in this fight, my ox has not been gored. I do not have an aggrieved minority mentality.
> Add to the mix most of the concerns are phony concerns & bad biology.


 Then who should we believe Monsanto?[/QUOTE]

cozyacres,
Did you even bother to read the APHIS EIS?


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I have never grown alfalfa, although I am fascinated by this legume. I intend to plant a small amount(12 acres with orchard grass) this fall to see how it will be received by my horse customers. Two things that I can state about RR alfalfa with certainty. 1. Cross contamination will be IMPOSSIBLE to control unless it is grown indoors in a building and then it is highly doubtful. 2. I asked my horse customers this year that bought my Tim/Orchard Grass what they thought of the "new roundup ready " alfalfas soon to be available and most turned their noses up at that mention of RR. I am not interested in RR because I would need the grass mixture if I was a alfalfa producer because of my customers being mostly equine folks. 
The reason I have never grown alfalfa is because I am a small operator compared to many of the producers on this site and I did not want to handle it by hand. I will be more automated this year. Regards, Mike


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## tnwalkingred (Jun 8, 2010)

I do not grow alfalfa and don't plan to however I have one question. Why are so many people against the RR alfalfa? Are there reasons why cross pollination would be such a terrible thing?

Kyle


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## nwks baler (Jul 18, 2008)

tnwalkingred said:


> I do not grow alfalfa and don't plan to however I have one question. Why are so many people against the RR alfalfa? Are there reasons why cross pollination would be such a terrible thing?
> 
> Kyle


It's only a problem if you are letting alfalfa go to seed. You can have a conventional alfalfa field next to a RR alfalfa field and it will not majically turn the conventional field into RR alfalfa. Its not any different than the alfalfa seed companies keeping their varieties separate.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

nwks baler said:


> It's only a problem if you are letting alfalfa go to seed. You can have a conventional alfalfa field next to a RR alfalfa field and it will not majically turn the conventional field into RR alfalfa. Its not any different than the alfalfa seed companies keeping their varieties separate.


In theory that's correct. In theory I should be done by the middle of June with first cutting, well before it actually goes to seed _here_. However with the wet springs we have had _here_ three years in a row, I've been more than happy to be done by the Fourth of July in a few of em. Last year I got a call and made a guys first cutting in August, I seen one field that never got mowed at all last year.


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## nwks baler (Jul 18, 2008)

mlappin said:


> In theory that's correct. In theory I should be done by the middle of June with first cutting, well before it actually goes to seed _here_. However with the wet springs we have had _here_ three years in a row, I've been more than happy to be done by the Fourth of July in a few of em. Last year I got a call and made a guys first cutting in August, I seen one field that never got mowed at all last year.


If you can't harvest an alfalfa crop once in the whole season maybe you shouldn't be raising alfalfa. (Grin)


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

If you can't harvest an alfalfa crop once in the whole season maybe you shouldn't be raising alfalfa. (Grin)

Yes some years we really need a good sence of humor to be in farming.


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

Gotta laugh, I didn't especially mean the whole feild didn't get cut, but mlappin is right the last three years have made a challenge for all. In 2009 there was 6 days in July that it didn't rain, and on these days it was not what you would call sunny either.
I was refeering to the missed wedges left after a strike out, places where people have cut around a well head or other objuct like hydro pole or tower, downed trees near fence lines etc. Even if you don't agree with the possibility or science behind cross-contamination you can see how it would happen.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

1. Cross contamination will be IMPOSSIBLE to control unless it is grown indoors in a building and then it is highly doubtful.

Mike that is really a statement based on bad biology. 
In the same way that the AIR from a swamp will cause malaria. 
The air blowing from an "contaminated" alfalfa will not contaminate the your alfalfa.

To start with there has to be cross pollination for the seed formed in your field will have the magic RR gene. 
So unless both fields are in bloom at the same time there can be no cross pollination. at worst all the cross polination will result in is for your seed to have the gene. If you are using a registered variety some company will be very upset if you are catching seed to resell as a named variety. Litigation Upset.

If your alfalfa never is in bloom, or your neighbors alfalfa is never in bloom there will never be any contamination. 
If they are never in bloom at the same time there still is no contamination.

Another example is if I have a scrub longhorn yearling bull and you have Carnation Excellent Conformation dairy cows the air drifting from my pasture to yours will not result in every one of your carnation stock turning into scrub longhorns. 
Now if your prize $250,000 carnation cow happened to be receptive and my scrub longhorn cleared that 5 ft high fence in a single bound then that cow might have a sorry calf. One year later the value of Miss Carnation will not have been diminished due to her enticing my young very athletic bull to cross the line.

If your potential hay customers have a pathological phobia as the result of ignorance or Frankin Food Propaganda you probably do not want to sell them alfalfa in any case. 
What if one their horses happens to die? The Vet with absolute authority swears that their $4,000,000 Kentucky Darby Steed died from Blister Beetle Poisoning. 
Blister beetles from the alfalfa hay you forced them to purchase. 
When they get done spreading bad biology, you will be burnt toast.


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

...and where in that statement did you say that contamination is impossible(low odds or not)? 
Lets just say I plant RR Alfalfa (well maybe not me, but the neighbor, even though it is not registered in Canada), and a tree in my fence line falls into my crop of hay. I do what everbody else does that doesn't cut hay with their loader tractor, i cut out into the feild to go around it with the intention of going back to get it when the work is done. But,after 1st cut is done I have fallen in to a depression because my hay got rained on 8 times again and I just don't care about this tree anymore, I'll drive around it untill the next year. My neighbor "Fred" has hay next to me, and in his feild separated by about 1000 feet(or whatever separation is legaly required???) off of the tree line has a wash out from a collapsed section of a municipal tile drain(quite common here), and he goes around that too. The township won't show up to fix the drain for months and if I do they can charge me under some oceans and fisheries act. To re-cap we now have small sections in two hay feilds that can't get cut and do go to bloom. Now I am not saying that this will spread like the ebola virus but, I do keep seed alfalfa, and next year the saved seed is 0.0000001% contaminated. Now we have the perfect storm, I have alfalfa that cross polinated, which is likely to happen whith both feilds being exposed to the same heat,sun, rain etc, and not cut because of local reasons. The only thing that is dangerous about this is that I am unaware of this happening so I use the seed that was harvested the next year and plant it the year following, with no care or concern for separation and it goes on... And then, even though I never once sprayed Roundup on my hay (because I still don't know it happened) several years later, the spraying contractor that I have used for years catches me out with his wife, this doesn't go well with him. So he decides to make things difficult for me and my new bride (his wife) by reporting me to the monsanto cops for saving bean seed. The RR cops get legal authority to sample my crops because I sighned the contract and terms and conditions of use, and Monsanto is greedy at this time, like now and they want to set an example of me after they found the RR gene in my hay... I end up spending the rest of my life putting up Monsanto signs in test plots, picking up garbage at said test plots, and whistling some court orderd Monsanto advertising tune wearing a Monsanto tee shirt. My own personal hell I admit HIGHLY unlikey, but possible. And the spread of this gene doesn't kill any horse or cow, but destroys the nations ability to conform to international food safety laws, and with that the export tap closes....


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## hay king (Feb 6, 2011)

I agree with Toyes Hill Angus. Cross contamanation happens even if you miss just 8inches next to the fence and your neighbor also misses 8 inches next to said fence boom cross breeding happens then it will spread. Monsanto has already shown how they deal with the comon farmer. They clearly cant be trusted at all. I will never plant one of there crops and I hope that they ban the RR alfalfa here in Canada That would save alot of headaches around here. You can bet that if Monsanto started to have money trouble that they would get a muti million grant from the government or they would just sue all the farmers that they could find with cross bred Alfalfa. as far as I can say about Monsanto dont trust them and dont buy from them.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

[quote name='hay wilson in TX']1. Cross contamination will be IMPOSSIBLE to control unless it is grown indoors in a building and then it is highly doubtful.

Mike that is really a statement based on bad biology.

Actually Wilson, that statement is based on biology, reality, and common sense. I understand perfectly how pollination works. I am not interested in growing RR alfalfa as I stated, but I am for the protection of citizens rights in this country. If a organic alfalfa grower wants to be assured of keeping his crop Genetically Modified free, I think he has every right to be concerned about RR alfalfa(I do not grow organically). Genetically Modified Canola has already proven that it is impossible to keep any element of control on these altered varieties. Genetically Modified Canola Has Legs, Study Says - National Geographic's Green Guide Google; Genetically Modified Canola for a plethora of biological information. Regards, Mike


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## Cozyacres (Jul 16, 2009)

I farm organically and don't want and am not allowed any GM crops on my farm.
BUT the biggest thing that bothers me is not the GM crop itself, but how if your crop gets contaminated with their gene, Monsanto owns it. 
Ask the Canadian Canola farmers. 
The biggest mistake of all was when they were allowed to patent seed.


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## Cozyacres (Jul 16, 2009)

nwks baler said:


> Then who should we believe Monsanto?


cozyacres,
Did you even bother to read the APHIS EIS?[/QUOTE]

Yes I have. Plus I have read many research papers for and against RR and GM crops in general. SO thats how I formed my option. But what is right for you and your farm is your decision to make.


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

...lest we forget the great Canadian Canola debacle... All it would take is one un-infromed, reckless soul... all it ever took was one in the past. Things were done that can never be undone. I am all for a person to have the right to chose his own path, not have his path skewed in a direction that it/he can never recover from. What I mean to say is that if I choose not to grow GM alfalfa, I do not want to have it turn up in my crop and ultimately on my diner table.


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## nwks baler (Jul 18, 2008)

Toyes Hill Angus said:


> ...and where in that statement did you say that contamination is impossible(low odds or not)?
> Lets just say I plant RR Alfalfa (well maybe not me, but the neighbor, even though it is not registered in Canada), and a tree in my fence line falls into my crop of hay. I do what everbody else does that doesn't cut hay with their loader tractor, i cut out into the feild to go around it with the intention of going back to get it when the work is done. But,after 1st cut is done I have fallen in to a depression because my hay got rained on 8 times again and I just don't care about this tree anymore, I'll drive around it untill the next year. My neighbor "Fred" has hay next to me, and in his feild separated by about 1000 feet(or whatever separation is legaly required???) off of the tree line has a wash out from a collapsed section of a municipal tile drain(quite common here), and he goes around that too. The township won't show up to fix the drain for months and if I do they can charge me under some oceans and fisheries act. To re-cap we now have small sections in two hay feilds that can't get cut and do go to bloom. Now I am not saying that this will spread like the ebola virus but, I do keep seed alfalfa, and next year the saved seed is 0.0000001% contaminated. Now we have the perfect storm, I have alfalfa that cross polinated, which is likely to happen whith both feilds being exposed to the same heat,sun, rain etc, and not cut because of local reasons. The only thing that is dangerous about this is that I am unaware of this happening so I use the seed that was harvested the next year and plant it the year following, with no care or concern for separation and it goes on... And then, even though I never once sprayed Roundup on my hay (because I still don't know it happened) several years later, the spraying contractor that I have used for years catches me out with his wife, this doesn't go well with him. So he decides to make things difficult for me and my new bride (his wife) by reporting me to the monsanto cops for saving bean seed. The RR cops get legal authority to sample my crops because I sighned the contract and terms and conditions of use, and Monsanto is greedy at this time, like now and they want to set an example of me after they found the RR gene in my hay... I end up spending the rest of my life putting up Monsanto signs in test plots, picking up garbage at said test plots, and whistling some court orderd Monsanto advertising tune wearing a Monsanto tee shirt. My own personal hell I admit HIGHLY unlikey, but possible. And the spread of this gene doesn't kill any horse or cow, but destroys the nations ability to conform to international food safety laws, and with that the export tap closes....


Two questions.

1 Is the spraying contractors wife good looking?

2 Since you are going to be working for Monsanto, can you get me a discount on Roundup Ready alfalfa seed?


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

I have read Monsato's rebuttle to the Canola growers case as showcased in a few anti-farming and environmental activist videos that a buddy of mine has shown me. The Monsanto rebuttle makes alot of sense to me. When you hear the growers story his makes sense also but several courts, all the way from low level all the way up to the Canadian Supreame Court ruled against this guy, sounds like to me that he was knowingly planted a few acres of the RR Canola and kept it and mixed it with his stock seed. Now unless there is a conspiracy and all the courts are fixed -? I'm just saying.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

hay wilson in TX said:


> If you can't harvest an alfalfa crop once in the whole season maybe you shouldn't be raising alfalfa. (Grin)
> 
> Yes some years we really need a good sence of humor to be in farming.


Didn't say it was me, but last spring was very trying. First year ever I damaged a field enough from wet ground it's getting planted to corn this year. Even when it wasn't raining in late May, June, and July, most of the time the ground was just too saturated to get on.

I can see the guys reasoning why he never got the one field cut, it was the last 10 acres out of 250 he has. It also has a few low spots that are prone to be wet. He was waiting for it to dry out while starting the next cutting on his other fields. With the weather the way it was _here_ last summer, he just never got caught up enough to get that last ten acres. Was also a early corn/soybean harvest here as well.


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## nwks baler (Jul 18, 2008)

mlappin said:


> Didn't say it was me, but last spring was very trying. First year ever I damaged a field enough from wet ground it's getting planted to corn this year. Even when it wasn't raining in late May, June, and July, most of the time the ground was just too saturated to get on.
> 
> I can see the guys reasoning why he never got the one field cut, it was the last 10 acres out of 250 he has. It also has a few low spots that are prone to be wet. He was waiting for it to dry out while starting the next cutting on his other fields. With the weather the way it was _here_ last summer, he just never got caught up enough to get that last ten acres. Was also a early corn/soybean harvest here as well.


I was making a joke. I can see where if someone had 250 acre of alfalfa it would be hard to find the twenty to thirty minutesit takes to cut ten acre. I am a very small alfalfa farmer. I some how managed to cut all of my 1600 acre of alfalfa every cutting. Irrigated 5 times and dryland 4 times.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Granola is an interesting crop. 
Really not much different than soybeans or cotton. Granola yield is in the seeds. It is an annually planted crop. It is possible to plant your own seed.

Alfalfa Hay is different.

Organic Cotton is grown. Organic Corn is grown. I suspect there is organic soy beans grown. All with out stomping on the other 90% of the field crop growers. We do not put hybrid corn growers off on a desert island to prevent the contaminating the open pollinated corn varieties.

Fear not there is a good supply of California and Wisconsin Judges to rule against the unwashed heathens.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

nwks baler said:


> I was making a joke. I can see where if someone had 250 acre of alfalfa it would be hard to find the twenty to thirty minutesit takes to cut ten acre. I am a very small alfalfa farmer. I some how managed to cut all of my 1600 acre of alfalfa every cutting. Irrigated 5 times and dryland 4 times.


1600 hundred eh, that's getting to be a respectable row crop farmer around here and is unheard of for Alfalfa. He also doesn't have a discbine so once that hay got rank and went down, I'm not sure he could even cut it if he did get to it. I thought about offering to mow it for him with my discbine, but I also knew as nasty as it was when I had time, my 110 hp tractor wouldn't have enough ass to run the discbine no matter how slow I went.

The guy with the ten acres that never got cut is a dairy farmer, his son worked in town all summer so he was short on help. He also volunteers on the local fire department and is a supervisor with the local SWCD. So I can see when his other cuttings were ready he got those done instead of messing around with that rank first cutting. Personally it would have drove me bugsh*t and if required I would have paid someone to make it if that was what required to git er dun.


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

This is startying to seem like the age old argument of waht came first, the chicken or the egg. It doesn't matter who screwed up when it comes to canola, and maybe Alfalfa. It doesn't matter if Monsanto is a bunch of dirty crooks. And it also doesn't matter if the court system is or is not involved in a conspiracy. The thing that matters is that we have now released an non-native organism into the ecosystem that we all depend on to make a living and we don't know how to eradicate it. We also have these stupid Asain beetles that look like Lady Bugs but without the spots (and also bite), that were not supposed to survive the winter or breed with the Lady Bug, just eat aphids. But they did survive winter, they do cross breed, and they crawl out of every crack in your house by the thousands in the spring.
I do not have the answers but I do know the questions. That people should be asking themselves before they release these GMOs or invasive species, but the scientists seem more preocupied by the question if they can do something, and less concerned with wether or not they should. 
But this attitude can leave you behind the technicalogical curve, but at least you won't be bitten by some red bug the size of a beach ball while you are running through volenteer canola in your government approved straight jacket.

please understand that I am not cowering in fear, but poking fun, and at the same time wondering if something like this is a possibility and to what extent


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

Ok, so who is going to let Hay Wilson in on the joke? I can't be the only one laughing at his last post. Maybe he took a trip to Eugene, Oregon and saw all the hippies out there.


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## nwks baler (Jul 18, 2008)

hayray said:


> Ok, so who is going to let Hay Wilson in on the joke? I can't be the only one laughing at his last post. Maybe he took a trip to Eugene, Oregon and saw all the hippies out there.


I saw it to. I haven't got the heart. (Grin)


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

well guys, I think this has had the hell kicked out of it. It has been fun and educational, but if we're gonna pick on sombody's spelling than this has gone too far!!!! LOL This is too much!!!


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