Court Rejects Genetically Modified Sugar Beets
By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle, September 23, 2009
_http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19177.cfm_
(http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19177.cfm)
OCA Editors' Note:
OCA applauds our ally the Center for Food Safety _http://truefoodnow.org/_
(http://truefoodnow.org/) for this watershed moment in their efforts to
bring GMOs under the rule of law. The victory breathes new life into our
consumer campaigns for marketplace rejection of food brands that have
indicated
they would use GMO sugar.
TAKE ACTION:
_http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/t/1961/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1
2700_
(http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/t/1961/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=12700)
Write to American Crystal Sugar President David Berg who believes
consumers acceptance of GMO sugar be a big nonevent. Tell him you're joining
the
boycott of foods with non-organic sugar.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The government illegally approved a genetically modified,
herbicide-resistant strain of sugar beets without adequately considering
the chance they will contaminate other beet crops, a federal judge in San
Francisco has ruled.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White rejected the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's decision in 2005 to allow Monsanto Co. to sell the
sugar beets, known as Roundup-Ready because they are engineered to coexist
with Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.
Sugar beets produce 30 percent of the world's sugar and, according to
consumer groups, half the granulated sugar in the United States. This year's
planting, centered in Oregon's Willamette Valley, is the first to include a
full crop of the Monsanto product.
White said the USDA, in concluding that the new crop would have no
significant environmental effects, discounted the likelihood that wind-borne
pollen would spread to fields where conventional sugar beets, table beets and
the beet variety known as Swiss chard are grown.
Planting genetically modified sugar beets has a significant effect on
the environment, White said in his ruling Monday, because of the potential
elimination of a farmer's choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops,
or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically engineered food.
He said the department must prepare an environmental impact statement,
which would include public input.
White did not immediately prohibit distribution of the genetically
modified sugar beets, but a lawyer for plaintiffs in the case said they would
ask
the judge for an injunction against sales until the review was completed.
The ruling sends a very clear message to the USDA to protect American
farmers and consumers and not the interests of Monsanto, said Kevin Golden, a
San Francisco attorney for the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, which
opposes genetically modified foods and supports organic farming.
Golden said the ruling could also affect herbicide use, because the
Environmental Protection Agency has allowed more herbicide spraying in areas
where the resistant crops are grown.
Representatives of the Agriculture Department and Monsanto were
unavailable for comment. Luther Markwart, spokesman for the 10,000-member
American
Sugar Beet Growers Association, said the group is looking forward to
aggressively advocating for farmers who want to use the altered beets.
The ruling followed a similar decision in 2007 by another federal judge in
San Francisco, Charles Breyer, to halt the nationwide planting of
Monsanto's genetically engineered strain of alfalfa until the USDA conducted
an
environmental study. A federal appeals court upheld Breyer's decision last
year.
The department's 2005 decision on sugar beets acknowledged that pollen
from the genetically modified crop could spread to other beet crops. But the
USDA said farmers would not be harmed because they would still be able to
buy non-genetically modified seeds.
White, however, cited studies that said winds can carry sugar beet pollen
at least 2 1/2 miles, much farther than the voluntary buffer zones between
beet crops recommended by Oregon agriculture officials.
He said the department had failed to consider the economic effects of its
decision and had provided no evidence for its conclusion that
non-genetically modified sugar beets would remain available to farmers.
© 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.
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