On June 21, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction banning the planting of alfalfa seeds that were engineered to be resistant to pesticides. The 7-1 decision marked the first time the court has ever dealt with the issue of genetically modified food.
In Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, the high court ruled that the lower courts overstepped their authority in instituting the ban, and vacated a 2007 injunction that was issued by a federal district judge in San Francisco and upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The alfalfa in question, called Roundup Ready Alfalfa (RRA), had been genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup.
