Coon Valley farmer aims to protect organic integrity

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Feb 23, 2007 | by Magney, Reid

It's a long way from a Coon Valley farm to a California courtroom, but the concerns of one area farmer about genetically engineered crops are making a difference in a federal lawsuit.

Jim Munsch, who raises organic beef cattle, became concerned several years ago that genetically modified alfalfa seeds approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture could contaminate his alfalfa crops.

Unlike other genetically engineered crops and seeds the USDA has approved, alfalfa pollen can travel 2 to 3 miles, Munsch said, and genetically engineered alfalfa easily can contaminate nongenetically engineered alfalfa.

Munsch said the chance of cross pollination is huge. Experts are convinced, he said, that "within a few years (there) will be no such thing as nongenetically engineered alfalfa, that all alfalfa will be contaminated."

What's so important about pure alfalfa?

It's the country's fourthlargest crop, and Munsch and other livestock farmers need organic alfalfa to to feed their cattle, sheep and lambs. If their alfalfa becomes contaminated, and they feed it to their animals, those animals can't be marketed as organic under USDA organic rules.

"There are no good alternatives to alfalfa in the upper Midwest," he said. "At the worst for organic producers, it would mean they would be uncertifiable. At the best, it would mean we producers who use alfalfa would have to go outside the U.S. to get our seed."

"The thing that really upset me is the removal of choice," said Munsch, who has no problem with non-organic growers.

"As a beef producer, it removes an option, a very good option, and it just doesn't seem fair to me, and it didn't seem fair to the judge."

Munsch gave a deposition in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of groups led by the Center for Food Safety, which includes the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California ordered that a full environmental impact statement must be carried out on "Roundup Ready" alfalfa, the genetically engineered variety developed by Monsanto and Forage Genetics.

"It was uplifting to me to see a federal judge recognize" the need to for action, Munsch said. "To see that a part of government had a good understanding of the environmental and economic impact of this movement."

"I'm not from the hippy era of organics," Munsch said. "I'm not an evangelist for it or a fundamentalist, but I do have concerns myself about food because of family. I know other people do. And at the very least we have to give those people a choice."

Thursday, Munsch was in La Crosse, co-teaching a course at the annual Organic University as part of this weekend's Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference at the La Crosse Center.

Munsch has a federal grant from the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative to promote the use of grazing to help Vernon County farmers turn their hilly slopes into wellmanaged pastures. It's an alternative to planting crops, which erodes the land and harms water quality.

Munsch teaches with Art Thicke, an organic dairy farmer from the La Crescent, Minn., area, whose herd eats almost no corn. Like Munsch's beef cattle, they eat most of their food in the pasture, which is far less expensive than corn and other commercial feeds. And that, in turn, makes farming more profitable.

"This is just astonishing," Munsch explained. "If somebody is using pasture poorly and will embrace different management techniques, not spend a nickel on capital equipment, just manage it differently, they can double the output of the pasture. If a seed corn guy came onto the average farm in Wisconsin and said I've got a seed that will double your output, farmers would go berserk."

Profitability is a growing concern among livestock farmers as consumer demand for ethanol fuel increases. Ethanol producers are bidding up the price of corn nationwide, making it much more expensive for farmers to feed their livestock.

Munsch said consumers won't see increased food prices immediately, because dairy and beef producers will be getting squeezed first.

"There's going to be a world of hurt in the meat industry," Munsch said. "But the producer who is buying corn and can learn to get the nutrient value out of pasture can replace expensive corn with very cost-effective pasture."