What the heck is alfalfa, anyway?

Alfalfa by TwoWings via Wikimedia Commons.

Alfalfa is an awesome plant that is quite unique among field crops. It’s a legume, which means it can fix nitrogen (meaning less nitrogen fertilizer needs to be added) as well as being one of very few perennial crops, which means it can be left in the field to grow year after year and keep being harvested. It’s roots can grow quite deep so it can be very drought tolerant. It produces a high quality forage for animals, and is especially great for dairy cows.

One problem with alfalfa is that, as it is left to grow for multiple years, weeds can accumulate and the alfalfa stand will need to be plowed under. Weeds can be controlled to some degree with harvesting at just the right time (before the weeds make seeds) but at some point that isn’t enough. Enter Roundup Ready alfalfa which can be sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate to control weeds while leaving the alfalfa healthy. It allows farmers to leave their alfalfa stands standing longer.

Vilsack looks for solution on coexistence

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has some pretty complicated problems facing his Department. On the one hand, he has biotech companies developing products that have been determined by science to be safe and many farmers who wish to use them. On the other hand, he has a small but growing group of organic farmers who claim that biotech crops will “destroy their ability to farm organically”. He’s looking for coexistence between both types of farmers.

At this time, coexistence between organic and conventional farms is worked out individually by neighbors. On a national scale, organic groups have initiated multiple lawsuits against the USDA in what some say are blatant attempts to prevent biotech crops from being grown at all (sugar beets, alfalfa).

In an effort to solve the problem, a creative potential solution has been devised – partial deregulation of biotech alfalfa. This would “include isolation standards from other crops, set geographic restrictions on where the crop is grown, spell out harvest periods and regulate equipment use,” writes Charles Abbott on Check Biotech. One problem with this plan is that the USDA might be overstepping its regulatory authority. The USDA is charged with determining the potential pest status of any biotech crops submitted for deregulation, but doesn’t have requirements or authority to say what farmers can and can not do with a crop once it is deregulated.

Today, this issue is being debated in the House Agriculture Committee.

For more about the debate in real time, follow Philip Brasher, Chris Clayton, and Sara Wyant on Twitter, among others.

Edit: while researching for the post What the heck is alfalfa, anyway? I found the document where the specific conditions for conditional deregulation are laid out. The recommendations aren’t as bad as I thought they would be. They should be more than enough to satisfy anyone who knows even a little about alfalfa biology.