Ban on Monsanto genetically modified alfalfa upheld

By Jim Christie

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Citing the potential for genetic contamination, a U.S. judge on Thursday let stand a precedent-setting ban on the planting of a genetically modified alfalfa crop variety developed by Monsanto Co.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in a published order said his initial injunction against planting more of Monsanto's herbicide-resistant Roundup Ready alfalfa should stay in place until government studies on its environmental effects are concluded.

The ban is nationwide. An estimated 220,000 acres of Roundup Ready alfalfa have been planted.

"It's a turning point hopefully in the way biotech crops are regulated," said Will Rostov, a lawyer with The Center for Food Safety, a consumer advocacy group that sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture over its oversight of the genetically engineered alfalfa.

"It should be a wake-up call for USDA that they need to do more environmental studies with respect to future biotech crops," Rostov told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Rachel Iadicicco, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the government plans a complete environmental-impact statement on the biotech alfalfa.

Alfalfa is a perennial livestock fodder crop and one of the mostly widely grown crops in the United States. The commercialization of the Roundup Ready variety angered environmentalists, organic farmers and consumer groups, who fear it will contaminate organic and conventional varieties, create "superweeds" that do not respond to herbicide and damage export business.

Judge Breyer had issued a preliminary injunction in March, ruling U.S. regulators improperly allowed the commercialization of the biotech alfalfa without a thorough examination of its effects. That marked the first time a federal court overturned USDA approval of a biotech seed and halted planting, according to The Center for Food Safety.