BURLINGTON, Colo. - The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently gave its endorsement to the planting of two important biotech crops that had been in limbo.
In late January, USDA fully deregulated Roundup Ready alfalfa, allowing it to be planted without restrictions. And on Feb. 4, USDA granted a partial deregulation of Roundup Ready sugar beets that will permit them to be planted this spring while work on an environmental impact statement is conducted, news that was welcomed by an industry that has overwhelmingly embraced the technology.
Glenn Ledall, a sales representative for Pawnee Buttes Seed Inc., was prominently displaying a sign announcing the availability of Roundup Ready alfalfa during the trade show at the High Plains No Till Conference last week in Burlington, Colo. The company is based at Greeley, and Ledall lives in Eaton.
He said the level of buyer interest so far in alfalfa bioengineered to be resistant to Roundup herbicide was “not as much as I would have anticipated.” But he attributed that, at least in part, to the on-again-off-again effect of a lawsuit by biotech opponents and the lengthy completion of the environmental impact statement followed by the USDA approval process.
“It wasn’t out long enough for people to really learn about it,” he theorized.
Roundup Ready alfalfa was first commercialized in 2005.
More than 5,000 farmers planted it on over 250,000 acres before a court ruling halted further sales and planting.
USDA considered allowing it with certain geographic and isolation restrictions intended to minimize contamination of organic crops. But leaders of the House and Senate Ag Committees pressured Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to deregulate it without stipulating any conditions.
Ledall said he had no doubt Roundup Ready alfalfa would continue to take off, in part because of the popularity of other Roundup Ready crops like corn, soybeans and cotton.
“The technology is something that’s already a part of their operations,” he said. “It’s not going to go away.”
Some foreign markets, like Japan, have banned genetically modified organisms, and non-GMO feed crops such as sorghum have benefited from a corresponding boost in international demand.
At the same time, however, markets in third world countries are also expanding and creating the opportunity to export more conventional crop production, Ledall noted.
“The dairy industry in Saudi Arabia is just exploding, and that leads to more alfalfa sales,” he said. “Look at the situation in Egypt — everyone’s very concerned with what is going on there, because it will effect all these other things. … The spectrum is diverse, but I think farmers are going to want this technology to grow their crops.”
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