Option 4: Community Refuge Plan

As distance-to-refuge requirements become more specific, growers who farm across broad areas on noncontiguous fields may have difficulty meeting those requirements with all field configurations. Particularly where smaller, isolated fields are involved, it may be impossible for an individual grower to have an associated refuge within one-half to one mile without placing the refuge within the individual field. Placing a refuge within these smaller, isolated fields is often impractical because of the requirement that the refuge must be at least 150 feet wide, and preferably 300 feet wide.

Additionally, there is merit to the concept of multiple growers in an area working together to ensure that the B.t. cotton and refuge fields are appropriately sized and placed to provide optimum insect resistance management (IRM) value, while providing for more flexibility in refuge field placement than can be achieved by an individual grower working alone. There are no limits on the number of growers or the number of acres that can be covered in a community refuge plan. A grower may choose to participate in a community refuge plan with part of a farm, and another part of the farm may be covered by his/her own established refuge fields. The Community Refuge Plan on the following page addresses the situations described above.

Community Refuge Plan Requirements

A Community Refuge Plan requires an agreement with the company providing the seed. In the case of Bollgard® cotton, the following applies to agreements with Monsanto for 2002. This information is provided as a public service to growers planting Bollgard® cotton and is not an endorsement of Monsanto or any legal agreements made with Monsanto or its representatives.

A group of growers who farm in a contiguous area (a “community”) may agree to implement a single IRM plan for the entire area managed by those growers. The Community Refuge Plan must meet the requirements of either the 20% sprayed option or the 5% unsprayed option, or an appropriate combination of the two options. The larger area bounding the entire group of farms would form a geographic “community,”and the refuge requirements would apply to the community of growers and the geographic community exactly as they apply to a single grower. The 5% embedded refuge option is NOT allowed for use by a community group.

The Community Refuge Agreement among the growers must require that an appropriate amount of refuge (depending on the option chosen) is associated with the total amount of Bollgard® grown by the community and all distance requirements are met for all Bollgard® fields included in the community. A Community Refuge Plan will require cooperative planning by all growers involved prior to the season to ensure that all Bollgard® fields planted have associated refuge of the proper size and within the proper distance.

All growers participating in a Community Refuge Plan will be required to complete and sign a Community Refuge Agreement form provided by Monsanto. Individual participating growers must maintain a copy of the Community Refuge Agreement and field maps that show field identity by grower, field size, crop planted, and location and proximity of Bollgard® and non-Bollgard-refuge cotton fields. A Community Refuge Agreement form is included in this brochure. Additional copies can be obtained at your seed dealer, on the FARMSOURCE.com web site, or by calling 1-800-ROUNDUP. Completed Community Refuge Agreement forms must be faxed to (314) 213-1685 or mailed to Monsanto Sales Support, ATTN: Community Refuge Plan, 622 Emerson Rd., Suite 150, St. Louis, MO 63141 by May 31, 2002.

Each community must designate a coordinator for the total Community Refuge Plan. This coordinator may be anyone (for example, consultant, extension agent or grower) as long as he/she is knowledgeable on all of the requirements and details of the community plan and agrees to represent the group to explain the plan. This coordinator will act as a facilitator and/or spokesperson for the community refuge group, but, as the coordinator, is not responsible or personally liable for the acts or omissions of other members of the community.

The coordinator must maintain a copy of the Community Refuge Plan and the field maps for the entire community describing the individual grower participation in the Community Refuge Plan, and must make them available upon request by a Monsanto representative. If Monsanto requests a grower visit to monitor the IRM plan compliance with a community member, the individual grower is responsible to meet with the Monsanto representative and represent the entire community plan, or to arrange for the coordinator to meet with the Monsanto representative.

All growers participating in a Community Refuge Plan agree to be responsible for the proper implementation of that plan. The “community” and all the growers in that community are responsible for any instance of noncompliance. If any community plan member is visited by a Monsanto representative and it is determined that refuge fields are not of sufficient size, are not within the proper distance from the Bollgard fields, or are not properly managed agronomically or according to the plan, then either all of the members of that community will be denied the option of a Community Refuge Plan the following year or, will be inspected the following year by a Monsanto representative to ensure community compliance. If there are any instances of noncompliance in that community the second year, all the members of the community will be ineligible to license Bollgard technologies the next year.