McCaslin: “There is an even simpler way. There’s a relatively simple seed test that’s used for the export seed industry to test for the presence of the Roundup Ready transgene in seed lots. A number of labs across the country do that. So if you’re buying commercial seed and you’re concerned about low levels of adventitious presence, it would be pretty routine to have that seed tested if that was the concern.”

Geertson: “On those tests they do 1,000 seeds. There are 220,000 seeds in a pound of alfalfa. When you plant a 50-lb bag, it’s very likely that those tests could miss a lot of seed. When you take out just 1,000 seeds, you’re taking a very small percentage of seed out of the bag. So you can very likely miss a lot of the transgenic seed in there. However, when you do this proposition of planting an acre or whatever, and you put on 4-5 lbs of seed, even if there’s one or two seeds in there, it’ll show up in this test when you spray.”

Is there any place left in the world that can grow non-genetic alfalfa?

McCaslin: “There are places in the U.S. where we are doing that today. We’re the largest exporter of alfalfa seed. Almost all that export is going to countries where Roundup Ready is not deregulated, so you have to show non-detectable (zero) levels of adventitious presence. We produce for those markets today in areas where you can produce zero-detect Roundup Ready; we do that on a routine basis in the U.S. We produce seed in Canada and Australia and other places also, but we’re certainly not relying on those countries for non-GE seed production.”

Huberty: “Actually, all that is talked about in the environmental impact statement. We look at the effect of deregulation of RR alfalfa in trade.”

Geertson: “I’ve had a small export business of alfalfa seed to New Zealand. We’ve given that business up because we know now that we can’t produce alfalfa seed that does not have the possibility of some contamination. If one of those New Zealand farmers sprays his field out with Roundup and then finds this transgenic plant there, it would come back on us very quickly. I’m not going to take the chance of sending any more seed to New Zealand. In Nevada I have 40 acres of an alfalfa variety that we were going to send to New Zealand. Forage Genetics contracted with a farmer about two miles away and they planted over 130 acres of Roundup Ready alfalfa ... We had that (40 acres) tested and it tested positive. Then we took another test and that test didn’t show anything. But, still, we knew for certain there was some of the transgene in that seed lot.”