alfalfa trip

Alfalfa hay growers targeting organic or export markets needn’t worry that their fields will be contaminated with the Roundup Ready gene, says Mark McCaslin.

Interviewed last Thursday shortly after USDA announced that Roundup Ready alfalfa will be deregulated without restrictions, the president of Forage Genetics International emphasized that “Alfalfa is a forage crop, harvested well before the ripe seed stage. There’s no evidence of gene flow from one hayfield to another. To suggest otherwise is just not accurate. Gene flow in alfalfa is not a hay issue.”

Anyone who has driven a highway, cut hay, walked along country roads or been behind a truck transporting alfalfa hay knows this statement to be the BS that it is. Gene Flow studies not linked with corporate diddlers, like this one perhaps, The Feral nature of Alfalfa are a good resource for those whose powers of observation and experience are muted to "science based" data.

The sheer tonnage of crap coming through regarding transgenic alfalfa has covered the opposition and they are resigned to living under it, finding ways to adapt. But Coexistence is looking like a profitable proposition, and is destined to be besmirched with the compromises that afford.

Perhaps genetically engineered crops should have a fluorescent marker insert or some means of identification, or a tool like this:

To the untrained eye, the false-color images appear a hodge-podge of colors without any apparent purpose. But Thomas is now trained to see yellows where crops are infested, shades of red indicating crop health, black where flooding occurs, and brown where unwanted pesticides land on her chemical-free crops.
here

or perhaps pollinators could additionally be equipped with nanosensors to determine their pathways to our gmo free crops or more realistically our fields and pathways to them could have neonosensors to alert us to their coming. here

People profit from our ignorance at the cost of our innocence and integrity as a people (and yes having the freedom and responsibility to choose our foods and feedstuffs is about integrity of our culture). And we let them:

Thursday, February 10, 2011. Ottawa - Last night, a majority of Liberal MPs joined with Conservatives to vote down an important Private Members Bill on genetic engineering (GE). Bill C-474 would have required that “an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted.” The Bill was defeated 176 to 97.

CBAN press release