Dear Editor
Monsanto is currently attempting to make its Roundup Ready alfalfa the first genetically modified perennial planted in Canada.
After five years of lawsuits, the sale and growth of genetically modified alfalfa was approved unconditionally by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on January 27, 2011. Genetically modified alfalfa has been grown for the past two seasons in the United States.
Now, Wisconsin-based Forage Genetics International plans the wide-scale selling of Monsanto's genetically modified alfalfa seeds in Ontario and Quebec as early as the 2013 growing season.
This would be the first wide-scale sale and growth of genetically modified alfalfa seeds in Canada.
The introduction of genetically modified alfalfa has the ability to wipe out the entire foundation of organic and non-genetically modified agriculture. Alfalfa is a staple livestock feed. It is a crop often used by farmers during the three-year field transition from conventional to organic farming. Alfalfa also becomes essential in the crop rotation once a farm becomes organic because, as a nitrogen-fixer, it naturally fertilizes the soil.
Contamination by feral, perennial, widely cross-pollinating GM alfalfa would be devastating to organic and non-GM agriculture. It would particularly affect organic/non-GM meat, dairy, eggs and honey.
The results of an unprecedented two-year animal feeding trial, released in September 2012, found that lab rats fed genetically modified corn as well as glyphosate residue - the primary ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup - developed high incidences of tumours, multiple organ damage, and premature death.
No genetically modified animal feeding trials have been done up to this point for longer than 90 days.
A motion on a moratorium on the planting and growing of genetically modified alfalfa was tabled in Canadian Parliament in March 2011 by Liberal members of the House of Commons Agriculture Committee.
That motion was left unaddressed when Stephen Harper dissolved Parliament ahead of the federal election in May 2011.
We, as concerned citizens, are calling on our elected officials to do the responsible thing with untested, unproven GM alfalfa. We are calling for an immediate moratorium on the sale, planting, and growth of genetically modified alfalfa in Canada ahead of the 2013 growing season.
Jillian MacPherson
Carievale
