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ASGA responds to court challenge of Roundup Ready sugarbeets

By DALE HILDEBRANT, Farm & Ranch Guide

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Once the word was out that the USDA and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) had given the green light to Roundup Ready sugarbeets, it didn’t take long for a coalition of organizations to seek a federal court injunction asking for a delay until further studies were completed.

A lawsuit was filed in San Francisco, Calif., asking the USDA and APHIS be required to study the impacts on various segments of society, including business, environmental and consumer rights, before lifting the restrictions on Roundup Ready sugarbeets.

During the International Sugarbeet Institute, which was held in Grand Forks on March 5-6, Institute secretary Don Lilleboe read a statement from the American Sugarbeet Growers Associa-tion in response to the recently filed lawsuit.

In part, the statement said, “The plaintiffs have taken no action to try to impact the planting of Roundup Ready sugarbeets in 2008 and we anticipate that growers will proceed as originally contemplated, for the 2008 growing season.

“At the appropriate time we anticipate the sugarbeet growers and processors, along with the technology and seed companies, will ask the court to allow them to join in the lawsuit in support of USDA and APHIS.

“Barring any action by the plaintiffs in the next few weeks, the current parties to the litigation are scheduled to appear in court on May 10 for a routine scheduling conference.”

Those parties that are bringing the action against USDA and APHIS in-clude the Center for Food Safety, Sierra Club, Organic Seed Alliance and High Mowing Organic Seeds.

Similar action in the same San Francisco court resulted in Roundup Ready alfalfa being taken off the market until further studies are completed, and at this time the product hasn’t been allowed to re-enter the market.

Since many of the sugarbeet acres will have been planted before the initial court date on May 10, sugar industry officials see little impact on the 2008 planting plans.

This is welcome news to the sugarbeet seed companies, since they switched a large portion of their seed production program over to Roundup Ready seed and away from conventional seed production.

If Roundup Ready seeds had been banned, it might have caused a shortage of conventional sugarbeet seed.

Earlier this winter, American Crystal Sugar officials had predicted that approximately 50 percent of their acreage in 2008 would be in the form of Roundup Ready beets, and the Minn-Dak Cooperative had set a maximum of 50 percent of the acreage could be planted to the new technology seed.

However, in southern Minnesota, it was estimated only 15 percent of the acreage would be planted to Roundup Ready beets.

The plaintiffs are claiming that Roundup Ready sugarbeets could cause crop contamination, since most of the sugarbeet seeds are produced in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where organic chard and table beet seeds are also produced.

In addition, the group is claiming that adding another crop to the Roundup Ready group will only add to the glyphosate weed resistance problem and they question genetically-engineered sugar making its way into the nation’s food supply.

“At a time when consumers are facing multiple food safety challenges, we don’t need more corporations messing with our food supply,” said the Sierra Club’s Neil Carman.

However, earlier this winter, American Crystal agronomist Dr. Alan Cattanach told growers attending a meeting in Fargo that the sugar is the same, whether it comes from a Roundup Ready sugarbeet or a conventional beet.

“Nutritionally it’s the same and the chemical composition is the same,” Cattanach said. “The Sugar Industry Biotech Council took 40 samples from around the world; cane sugar samples, beet sugar samples, organic sugar samples, samples from the U.S. and many foreign countries and had them analyzed by an independent laboratory and found that all of these sugar samples have exactly the same analytical profile.

The sugar is the same, regardless of the source. And the pulp and the molasses are the same, whether from a biotech or conventional beet.”
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