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Mar. 17, 2010 St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports: Farmers can continue to grow Monsanto Co.'s genetically modified sugar beets, at least this year, after a federal judge in San Francisco refused to grant a ban proposed by environmental and food safety groups. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said in Tuesday's order that the damage from an injunction against planting and processing biotech sugar beets this spring would be "dramatic and widespread." But he didn't rule out ordering a permanent ban later this year. Tuesday's order followed warnings from agriculture economists, farmers and the sugar beet industry, all of which predicted dire consequences if a ban was imposed. Genetically modified sugar beets account for almost half of the nation's sugar supply, and prohibiting their use on such short notice may have led processing plants to shut down and caused a huge spike in prices for sugar and sweetened foods, the groups said. Roundup Ready sugar beets, developed by Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, are genetically altered to withstand applications of glyphosate-based weed killers. Roundup Ready sugar beets were planted commercially beginning in 2008 and now make up 95% of the nation's 1.2 million-acre crop. The Washington-based Center for Food Safety and other plaintiffs in the case sought a temporary ban on the beets in January, four months after the judge determined that regulators had erred in 2005 by approving their sale without a more exhaustive environmental review. White acknowledged the risk that conventional sugar beet seed crops as well as table beets and Swiss chard could be contaminated by the biotech sugar beets. In fact, tiny biotech sugar beet plants were found last year in a pile of compost being sold at an Oregon nursery. "That's the problem with genetically engineered crops - they inevitably get out," said Paul Achitoff, an Earthjustice attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case. "The more you use these crops the more risk there is of unanticipated contamination." But, the judge said groups seeking the ban waited too long. The potential harm from a last-minute ban on the beets outweighed the possible damage caused by allowing them to be planted for another season. Tweet |
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