Survey: Biotech Alfalfa Leads Plantings in the US

A survey of US alfalfa growers was conducted by Daniel H. Putnam and Steve Orloff in 2011 to investigate the growers' level of satisfaction on planting biotech alfalfa, as well as their general attitude towards the technology. Of the 381 respondents, 113 had grown herbicide tolerant (HT) alfalfa. More than 90% of the biotech alfalfa growers said that they were highly satisfied with the technology, citing efficient weed management as its best advantage. The growers said that they are concerned about development of herbicide resistant weeds, but not about the gene flow of genes in hay crops.

Of the alfalfa growers who have not planted HT alfalfa, more than half said that they were not interested in planting biotech alfalfa while the other portion felt that other growers should be allowed to plant it with or without restrictions. According to them, they have not used the technology because they had other weed control techniques; were philosophically against biotech crops; the technology was too expensive; or planting HT alfalfa would affect their markets.

Views on coexistence were varied among the alfalfa growers. More than half (65%) of the respondents believe that coexistence of biotech, conventional, and organic alfalfa is possible if some conditions were applied and a majority of them signified their interest to make adjustments to achieve coexistence.

Read the research paper for more information: http://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/+symposium/2011/files/talks/RRSurveyPROCEEDINGSDec2011.pdf.