What Will Survive?

So much for these being banned, that has seemed to change

Sugar Beet Beatdown: Engineered Varieties Banned

by Dan Charles



September 16, 2010

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iStockphoto.com Genetically modified sugar beets make up 95 percent of the crop in the U.S. Farmers who grow sugar beets say there isn't enough conventional sugar beet seed around anymore, and they no longer have the field equipment necessary to clear weeds from their fields.



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September 16, 2010
A federal judge says sugar beet farmers can't plant genetically engineered varieties next year, and those farmers, who produce half of America's sugar, now are in a bind. Many of them say they cannot go back to the way they used to work because they don't own those tools anymore and there aren't enough conventional seeds to go around.
The genetically engineered sugar beets, called "Roundup Ready" beets, can survive doses of the herbicide Roundup. That makes it easier for farmers to control weeds — they simply spray Roundup (or chemically equivalent herbicides) over their fields, and the weeds die while sugar beet plants thrive.
Enlarge iStockphoto.com Almost half of sugar consumed in the U.S. comes from sugar beets. But legal action facing the USDA may prevent genetically modified sugar beets from being grown in the U.S., which would severely curtail sugar output.


iStockphoto.com Almost half of sugar consumed in the U.S. comes from sugar beets. But legal action facing the USDA may prevent genetically modified sugar beets from being grown in the U.S., which would severely curtail sugar output.


When sugar beet growers switched to the new varieties two years ago, they did not expect legal problems. Roundup Ready soybeans and corn, approved a decade earlier, cover millions of acres of American farmland, and those crops had received exactly the same government approval.
But in recent years, environmental lawyers such as George Kimbrell, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Food Safety, have rolled out a new line of legal attack against genetically engineered foods.
"The concern is the farmers' loss of their fundamental right to choose the crop of their choice," Kimbrell says.
Kimbrell argues that an organic farmer might lose that choice, for instance, if another farmer across the road grows genetically engineered versions of the same crop. When the crops flower, they will cross-pollinate, and the organic farmer may have a problem. "If you're marketing your product as organic, or non-GMO [genetically modified organism], and it's contaminated, you can lose your markets; you can lose your certification," Kimbrell says.
Can't Go Back
Kimbrell's group, along with some organic seed producers, sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture, arguing that the USDA did not look carefully enough at the potential impact of cross-pollination before it approved genetically engineered sugar beets.
A federal judge agreed. In August, he shocked the sugar beet industry by revoking approval of the beets until the USDA carries out an environmental impact study.
That could take a couple of years. So unless there's a new legal twist, farmers will go back to planting conventional beets next spring.
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Genetically Engineering the Sweet Stuff Feb. 14, 2008


Some of them, though, say they simply cannot. Duane Grant, chairman of the Snake River Sugar Co. in Idaho, says the difficulties start with the most basic necessity: seeds.
"The seed companies are telling our company that we don't have enough to plant a full crop," he says.
In addition, it won't be easy to go back to the old ways of killing weeds. The teams of migrant workers who chopped out weeds in the old days are no longer available. Grant says he has discarded the special equipment that he once used to spray a cocktail of different chemicals, every week or so, down the rows of young beet plants.
"I simply do not have the expertise on my staff to apply conventional herbicides today," he says. "We'd have to go back to a training process. I'd have to purchase new sprayers, new cultivators. We're in a bit of a box, really."
Grant is hoping and even expecting the USDA to rescue him, and there is speculation that the agency may issue some sort of interim approval for a Roundup Ready crop next spring. Agency officials, however, declined to comment.
Growers On Notice

Two weeks ago, the USDA announced that it would allow sugar beet seed companies to grow genetically engineered seedlings this fall, but environmental groups immediately sued to block that approval. The case is still pending.
Kimbrell doesn't have much sympathy for the farmers.
"They've been on notice since we filed our complaint that this was a likely result of the case — so for over two years now," he says. "So any crying wolf now is not in good faith."
Sugar beet growers in Idaho, such as Grant, may be in the worst situation. They fell hardest for genetically engineered beets because they have some of the most severe weed problems. Farmers in other areas, such as the Red River valley of North Dakota and Minnesota, say they probably could harvest a conventional crop next year. But they warn that it would be a smaller harvest, and they caution that there may be sugar shortages and higher prices down the road.

 

I've got some really bad news for you.... Farmers And Conservationists Challenge Latest Federal Approval Of Genetically Engineered Sugar Beets,
San Francisco, CA – February 4, 2011 –

In defiance of earlier court ruling, USDA allows continued growing of controversial, illegally planted crop

Today the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) issued a new decision to allow the U.S. sugar beet industry to continue growing Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready,” genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets. The decision will be immediately challenged in court by a coalition of farmers and conservation groups: the Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, High Mowing Organic Seeds, and the Sierra Club. This is the same coalition that in August of last year had APHIS’s previous decision to allow planting thrown out because it violated environmental laws. The coalition declared the new decision unlawful as well, and vowed to overturn it.

The sugar beets are genetically engineered by Monsanto to tolerate repeated applications of that company’s weed killer Roundup, or glyphosate. Judge Jeffrey White of the federal district court for the Northern District of California found in earlier rulings that growing the GE sugar beets is likely to cause irreparable harm to the groups’ members and the environment, and “may cross-pollinate with non-genetically engineered sugar beets and related Swiss chard and table beets,” and ordered the federal government to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as required by the National Environmental Policy Act before allowing the GE sugar beets to be grown.

 

Oh no.... the people spoke and they listened, USDA: Farmers can plant genetically modified beets | Minnesota Public Radio News. The USDA has selective hearing. Of course their cherry picked "team" of scientists will determine the sugar beets are ecologically "sound" and in the best interests of public health based on the "best science" available or they'll play the stall game like they're doing in the Great Lakes over the carp until the cat's out of the bag.

 

BTW.... prepare for a bait and switch, 'Alternative Agriculture', Alternative Agriculture - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences.

Here comes the set up....

You can read the entire article and there's much more out there in journals but... seed resulting from their emerging genomic techniques such as RNA interference and MAS.... will be patentable.