Editorial: High court’s alfalfa ruling backed by logic, science

The rule followed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture stresses caution. Genetically modified organisms are considered plant pests, and thus banned, until shown otherwise.

That’s reasonable when making what could be irreversible lifeform alterations. All the more so when dealing with a $9 billion a year crop like alfalfa.

But ag researchers have many years’ experience with no sci-fi outcomes so far. In the meantime, farmers and consumers have benefited.

Still, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service may not have been cautious enough last year when it gave the go-ahead for American farmers to plant a variety of alfalfa engineered to resist the herbicide Roundup. Last year APHIS issued an environmental assessment saying the laboratory-altered seed posed no significant environmental risk.

That judgment is probably sound, but instead of seeing the process through to an environmental impact statement, the agency released the seed for unrestricted planting. In a lawsuit filed by environmentalists and organic alfalfa growers, a federal judge went to the opposite extreme, ordering a nationwide halt to the planting of Roundup-resistant alfalfa.

That overreaction was too drastic, the U.S. Supreme Court held yesterday in a 7-1 ruling that is being followed with interest in Washington state, producer of 20 percent of the nation’s alfalfa seed. APHIS thus is free to approve limited planting of the new variety until an environmental impact statement has been finalized.

While Monday’s Supreme Court ruling won’t launch a burst of immediate planting, it will put a needed damper on how far courts can go in stalling new plant varieties. It will require judges to base their decisions on what the science shows about imminent actions, not on speculation about actions that might follow.

There is abundant science and experience to follow.

According to Mike Kahn, associate director of the Agricultural Research Center at Washington State University, most of today’s soybeans grown in the United States have been engineered with a similar protein that allows them to survive the herbicide that kills adjacent weeds. Corn and cotton benefit from similar biotech protection against enemy bugs. The science has been well honed to achieve a specific, intended purpose without unleashing menacing consequences.

Not that critics don’t have valid concerns that wandering bees could spread unwanted pollen from engineered crops to nearby fields, thus tainting neighboring farmers’ organic-certified or export-bound crops. There are tested strategies for addressing those concerns, however.

Private agriculture researcher Alan Schreiber, who also raises both organic and conventional crops in the Tri-Cities area, reacted unequivocally to Monday’s ruling: “It’s a triumph of science and reason and logic over hysteria.”

Caution is still essential in the application of scientific promise, but it shouldn’t bring progress to a stop. Fortunately, the Supreme Court agrees.