Modified Beet Gets New Life !!!

The Agriculture Department, trying to avoid a shortage of U.S. sugar, said Friday it would allow U.S. farmers to resume planting the widely used genetically modified version of the sugar-beet plant that a federal judge has effectively banned.

More than half of the nation's granulated sugar—the stuff that consumers buy in supermarkets for baking or to pour in coffee—has in recent years come from beet plants genetically modified in the same way as most of the corn, soybeans and cotton grown in the U.S. The other half comes from sugar cane.

The beets, which are grown extensively around the border between North Dakota and Minnesota, have a Monsanto Co. gene that gives them immunity to glyphosate-based weedkiller, which the St. Louis biotechnology company sells as Roundup herbicide.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, who sits in San Francisco, last year blocked farmers from planting the weedkiller-resistant beets again this spring. He concluded the USDA should have conducted a lengthy study of the crop's potential consequences for groups such as organic farmers before originally clearing it in 2005.

An environmental-impact statement of the type ordered by the judge is usually thousands of pages long and takes years to conduct. That would have kept the genetically modified sugar beets out of the hands of farmers at least through 2012.

Monsanto said Friday that the USDA's move would allow U.S. farmers to begin planting genetically modified sugar beets this spring. But environmental and organic-seed groups that originally sued the USDA said Friday they would ask Judge White to block this latest move by the USDA.

Crop biotechnology and sugar interests had appealed to the USDA for some way to temporarily circumvent the judge's planting ban. According to biotechnology officials, that door opened when Monsanto successfully argued before the Supreme Court in 2010 that the USDA should be able to partially deregulate a genetically-modified crop while the agency completes environmental studies.

"Our clients would be irreparably harmed by the USDA's action," said Paul Achitoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental-law firm, which is representing organic seed farms.

Sugar-beet processors say there aren't enough traditional seeds around for farmers to plant this spring. A study conducted for the sugar industry predicted that U.S. sugar production would plunge 20% if the judge's ban stays in place.

That prediction alarmed food companies because a big drop in the U.S. sugar-beet crop would raise their sugar costs, which already have climbed sharply in recent years, thanks partly to booming demand and partly to weather problems in some sugar-growing regions of the world. The price of sugar has nearly tripled over the past two years.

The USDA, in a move that seemingly expands its regulatory powers over crop biotechnology, will for the first time "partially deregulate" a genetically modified crop. USDA is permitting farmers to plant genetically modified sugar beets this year only if they adhere to rules designed to prevent the plant's wind-blown pollen from reaching organic fields, where its biotechnology traits could spread.

Organic-food makers typically reject any ingredients in which they detect genetically modified materials, costing the grower the big price premium usually commanded by organic crops.

Until now, the USDA has always allowed the unrestricted planting of a genetically modified crop once it had passed its regulatory review, a process that largely hinges on the narrow question of whether a genetically modified crop could somehow become a plant pest.

The USDA decision is the second big victory for the crop-biotechnology industry in a week. The Obama administration earlier decided to allow unrestricted planting of Roundup-resistant alfalfa after flirting for nearly a month with the idea of placating organic farmers by restricting the planting of that seed in some states.

In the case of sugar beets, crop biotechnology and sugar interests had appealed to the USDA for some way to temporarily circumvent the judge's planting ban. According to biotechnology officials, that door opened when Monsanto successfully argued before the Supreme Court in 2010 that the USDA should be able to partially deregulate a genetically modified crop while the agency completes environmental studies.

Under the USDA plan released Friday, the handful of farmer-owned cooperatives that process the vast majority of the nation's sugar beets would have to sign compliance agreements with the USDA, and provide extensive information about the location and movement of the crops.

The USDA is also banning the production of genetically modified sugar beets in some places where seeds for organic beets are produced, such as in California and parts of Washington state. In other places, the USDA won't allow genetically modified sugar beets to be grown within four miles of seed being raised for conventional versions of beet-like plants.