Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis, will testify Wednesday, April 12, in support of new legislation that would levy specific civil penalties for destruction of research crops. The hearing before the Assembly Committee on Agriculture will be held at 1:30 p.m. in Room 126 of the State Capitol. The bill -- AB 2510, Civil Penalties for Destruction of Research Crops -- was introduced by Assemblywoman Helen Thomson in response to several incidents of research-crop destruction last fall at UC Davis and UC Berkeley. A group calling itself "Reclaim the Seeds" said that it had destroyed the crops in protest against genetic engineering. The new bill would provide for civil penalties of up to twice the monetary value of the crops destroyed. Also testifying with Van Alfen will be UC Davis graduate student Sharon Kessler, who lost six months of her research efforts last year when a crop of nongenetically engineered corn was destroyed by activists.