Sustainable development blog : ecology and humanitarian aid

“Why You Can Now Kiss Organic Beef, Dairy and Many Vegetables Goodbye” screams a recent AlterNet headline. This story, like so many others that have appeared in the press over the past week or two, revolves around the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decision to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa.

Nitrogen nodules on alfalfa roots.

As most of these articles correctly point out, alfalfa is a major feed crop for the dairy and beef industries, and as a perennial, bee-pollinated crop, the risks of contamination spreading into non-GE alfalfa crops is great. I’m afraid Iwon’t be finding any good reasons to cheer this particular decision by the USDA, which I agree with most critics, is short-sighted and completely unnecessary from either a farming or consumer standpoint. But, nevertheless, the decision has been made and farmers in the Unites States will now be able to plant Roundup Ready alfalfa.

My question is why would they want to?

One of the big reasons that farmers increasingly include a perennial forage crop like alfalfa in their rotations is to help interrupt weed and disease cycles in subsequent cereal crops like wheat and barley and improve the productivity of the soil.

A lot of farmers have learned the hard way that mono-cropping (planting the same annual crop type like corn or soybeans over and over again) causes huge problems in terms of disease, weed and pest problems, which they have to deal with using increasing amounts of herbicides and pesticides. That has led to more and more incidences of herbicide resist weeds, and less effective pest and disease control, as insects and pathogens develop resistance to the chemicals being applied to kill them.

More and more farmers are lengthening their crop rotations to include alfalfa, and although this has always been a common practice amongst organic producers, even conventional farmers are beginning to see the natural benefits that an alfalfa crop can give them.

Alfalfa creates its own fertilizer by capturing nitrogen (N) from the atmosphere and making it available for plant growth and development (a process called nitrogen fixation). Information from Manitoba Forage Council (MFC) shows that soil N levels increased by 130/lbs an acre after two years and can provide N for two subsequent crops after the alfalfa field returns to annual cereal crop production.

Alfalfa’s deep root system improves soil structure and helps rebuild organic matter. It also helps prevent soil erosion, improves irrigation efficiency and uses up nitrogen and phosphorus that has leached deep into the soil from previous applications of synthetic fertilizer and which could, otherwise, have ended up contaminating groundwater sources.

But one of the biggest benefits of an alfalfa crop is in weed suppression. According to MFC, 83% of producers in a University of Manitoba survey indicated fewer weeds in annual crops after alfalfa compared to rotations with annual crops only. And in long-term crop rotation trials at Brandon, Manitoba, using a 3-year alfalfa hay crop in a 6-year crop rotation, wild oat densities were substantially reduced compared to rotations with only annual crops. Herbicide-resistant wild oats and green foxtail can also be controlled when forages are included in the rotation.

Now I am not going to suggest that conventional farmers don’t employ some chemical tactics to help establish the alfalfa stand, sometimes by planting herbicide resistant crops like canola in the same field to provide the slower growing alfalfa seedlings protection from weeds in their first year. Farmers will also more often than not use an application of herbicide to remove the alfalfa stand when they want to re-plant an annual crop. It’s not perfect from a purist, organic standpoint. But anything that can help improve the fertility of the soil and interrupts weed and disease cycles to the point where there may be a considerable reduction in the application of herbicides, insecticides and synthetic fertilizers for five years or so, is a step in the right direction.

So for now, as a farmer that is going to have to pay increasingly higher costs for chemicals and fertilizers that are derived from fossil fuels, which continue to become more expensive as both demand and depleting supplies drive prices upward, what advantage is there to planting a GE crop that requires these expensive products, when I can plant a non-GE one that can provide me with all the benefits of those expensive chemicals without the cost?

At the end of the day I am hoping that common sense (and economics) will make GE alfalfa a much less attractive option for most farmers than its non-GE alternative.