This same issue happened to canola and the worst thing happened. Monsanto took over these small companies that were producing canola seed because they got that genetic Roundup Ready in their seed from blowing off their trucks. How are you preventing this from happening to the hay grower? I don’t want to lose an independent seed producer because I want to be able to buy seed from somebody other than Monsanto. I don’t want to buy expensive seed if I can buy cheaper seed from a little guy without the advertisement or television.

Huberty: “Those are the issues that are going to be looked at and developed in the environmental impact statement. We’re looking at impacts of both seed and hay, of having varieties available to the public for purchase and what the implications are from business and economics for both individual and larger organizations. USDA believes that organic production, use of genetically engineered varieties and conventional farming all provide benefits to consumers and farmers. So it’s trying to have that balance so everybody has a choice of what they want to buy, whether it’s the cheapest genetically engineered variety or a variety down the street. But recognize that genetically engineered varieties are the only ones that are regulated. They’re the only ones that go through any sort of federal process and are approved for use on the markets.”

Geertson: “There are a lot of growers out in our area who have a good conscious and they don’t want to sell contaminated seed into the marketplace. So they made the decision that they’re just going to get out of the alfalfa seed business because the area around them is contaminated with Roundup Ready alfalfa. I don’t know where we’re going to grow conventional alfalfa seed now in the United States that isn’t contaminated.”

McCaslin: “I think I can speak for the vast majority of the alfalfa seed industry and say that those companies are committed, for the very long term, of producing both (conventional and transgenic seed) should Roundup Ready alfalfa be deregulated. And I know that the quality control practices that we’re using internally at Forage Genetics and Cal/West and Pioneer and Dairyland are very simple quality-control procedures to make sure that conventional variety seed stock stays conventional with no contamination. We routinely screen all of our breeding stock to make sure that they’re true to type and there’s no contamination from Roundup Ready if it’s conventional, that it’s the right dormancy, that it has the traits that we’re promising.”

Is the environmental impact statement going to look at the accumulated use of glyphosate in genetically engineered crops?

Huberty: “We’re looking at cumulative use in the environment of glyphosate, not necessarily at a farm level. Because you have Roundup Ready alfalfa, you typically wouldn’t plant another Roundup Ready crop afterwards because the alfalfa volunteers over the next season and you’re not going to get rid of it unless you use other herbicides. So we’re looking at the costs involved in changing, essentially, the inputs that are put in that farm over time and what are the practices available to that farmer if he’s using Roundup Ready alfalfa.”