USDA must not approve GE alfalfa

[Guest guest]

True Food Network sent out this emergency note this afternoon. Please help out

with this.

Call your Senators and Representative today and say

" USDA must not approve GE alfalfa! "

Monsanto wants to sell its genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa and wants the

USDA to approve its permit application, but consumers, farmers, dairies, and

food companies don't want GE alfalfa plants and seeds released into the

environment.

USDA's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) admits that if GE alfalfa is

approved:

* GE Contamination of non-GE and organic alfalfa crops will occur

* GE contamination will economically impact small and family farmers

* Foreign export markets will be at risk due to rejection of GE contaminated

products

* Farmers will be forced to use more toxic herbicides to remove old stands of

alfalfa

Yet, unbelievably, USDA has decided that these impacts are insignificant! And,

USDA intends to approve Monsanto's Roundup Ready™ GE alfalfa anyway.

Call your Congressional Representatives today and ask them to hold USDA

accountable by contacting Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack and urging him to

deny approval of Monsanto's GE alfalfa! Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard:

(202)224-3121 and ask for your Senator/Representative's office. If you do not

know who they are click here to look them up. Speak with the agriculture staff

person or leave a message. Tell them that you DO NOT support the deregulation of

GE alfalfa, for the following reasons:

* GE contamination of non-GE and organic crops would be inevitable

* You won't buy products that are GE-contaminated

* Alfalfa is a major food source for livestock and GE alfalfa would destroy the

integrity of organic dairy products

* You support the rights of farmers to grow the crops of their choice, and GE

contamination makes that impossible

* GE crops increase pesticide use, harming human health and the environment

* Ask your Representative and Senators to contact Secretary Vilsack and urge him

to deny USDA approval of Monsanto's GE alfalfa

Then email us at info@... and tell us who you called and let us know

what kind of response you got!

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Background

In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture

(USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered (GE)

Roundup Ready alfalfa. USDA failed to conduct an environmental impact statement

(EIS) before deregulating the crop, as required by law. An EIS is a rigorous

analysis of the potential significant environmental, health, and economic

impacts of a federal decision, mandated under the National Environmental Policy

Act (NEPA). The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the

USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the GE plant on the environment, farmers, and

the public in an EIS.

USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 75-day comment period is

now open until 3 March, 2010. CFS has begun analyzing the EIS and it is clear

that the USDA has not taken the concerns of non-GE alfalfa farmers, dairies,

exporters, retailers or consumers into consideration in its recommendation to

approve the commercial sale (deregulation) of GE alfalfa. In fact, the EIS

states that consumers don't care if their organic food is GE contaminated and

neither do organic farmers, as long as farmers employ the organic practices

required under the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA). Obviously, this is not

true and we need to push our Congressional representatives to call upon USDA to

deny the approval of GE alfalfa.