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| For the growers of RR Alfalfa, the following article will telling you a little more on what is happening with RR Alfalfa.
That said, last week, a telephone conference call was held with USDA APHIS, who are the ones that will enforce these rules. The purpose of the call to myself representing Idaho, and others in Calif, Washington, Oregon, Natl. Alfalfa Alliance, and seed company rep's, was to try and get some some common sense into the bale tagging requirement.
After 2 hours, it boiled down to having the RR Alfalfa sales Invoices marked as RR Alfalfa. The trucker would have to have a special marker on the load, similar to Hazardous Material markings. Each truck load would be considered a "lot". The buyer would have to sign off that he knows it is RR Alfalfa.
Combination loads would all have to be marked as an entire load of RR hay. The special twine marking, was more or less ruled out, as it could not be implemented now, the hay is already baled.
APHIS is to take this before the Judge and see if this will suffice for the marking of each bale. All other rules will stay in place. These rules are listed in the attached article.
Once all the locations for growing RR Alfalfa are found, spot checks by APHIS will be conducted to see if all the rules are being followed. They plan to check records and contact those who haul or custom harvest the RR Alfalfa. Also the buyers to see if the were notified.
As a final note, APHIS is sympathic to the growers plight and want to do anything they can to have this tagging rule changed. However, they have a court order to enforce it.
http://westernfarmpress.com/news/082307-monitoring-regulations/
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RR alfalfa monitoring regulations ludicrous, unworkable
