Partial Deregulation of GM Sugar Beets Appealed

By Dan Flynn

For related articlesand more information, please visit OCA's Millions against Monsanto page,and our Genetic Engineering page.

When you've been running the board in a San Francisco courtroom and you are on the verge of having genetically modified (GM) sugar beets torn up by their roots, do you care if USDA tries to do a little something on its own?

Probably not all that much.

USDA on Feb. 4 said that it was partially deregulating GM sugar beets, allowing plantings in 2011, under certain conditions.

"After conducting an environmental assessment, accepting and reviewing public comments and conducting a plant pest risk assessment, APHIS has determined that the Roundup Ready sugar beet root crop, when grown under APHIS imposed conditions, can be partially deregulated without posing a plant pest risk or having a significant effect on the environment," a top USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) official said.

But that decision is just one more item for Earthjustice and the Center for Food Safety to appeal, probably in U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's courtroom. That is the same venue where the challengers have been racking up wins.

It is White who has ordered those GM sugar beets pulled out by the roots, an action now on its own appeal. Those plantings would provide seed for the 2012 growing season.

Challengers to the Round-Up Ready sugar beets fear their pollen might contaminate organic and other non-GM crops.  Monsanto's GM sugar beets are resistant to its own Round-Up brand of herbicide.

Before White ordered USDA to do a full-blown environmental impact statement on Monsanto's Round-Up Ready GM sugar beets, 95 percent of the growers in the dozen states where they are planted had adopted them.

The final EIS is not due until May 2012.  USDA issued the draft last November and it included at option, requested by Monsanto, for a planting option in the interim under certain conditions.

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