Half of US sugar supply affected by ban on illegal GMO plant

By Theo Frei: Subscribe to Theo's RSS feed

August 15, 2010 12:58 AM EDT

A federal judge ruled the premature approval of the genetically modified sugar beets from Monsanto by the government as unlawful.

Federal District Judge Jeffrey S. White said that the lack of any thorough risk assessment of the transgenic plants, as required by law, makes an approval for commercial cultivation impossible.

The environmental consequences of the sugar beets were not assessed adequately by the Agriculture Department, but an approval was given despite this violation of the National environmental Policy Act.

White, based in San Francisco, stated this already in a ruling in September 2009 and warned farmers to opt for conventional seeds. Apparently everyone ignored this earlier decision and warning, as 95 percent of all sugar beets planted in the U.S. are based on the genetically altered Monsanto seeds. The Agriculture Department "has already had more than sufficient time to take interim measures, but failed to act expediently," White wrote.

The planting of these plants, which are resistant against the controversial herbicide Round-Up, also marketed by agro-industrial behemoth Monsanto, is now banned. But luckily for farmers, their current harvest was exempted from the ban and can be processed into sugar for the food factories.

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The sugar beet crop planted on U.S. soil provides around half of the sugar supply of the country and was valued at approximately $1.3 billion two years ago, according to government data. The sugar industry issued a warning beforehand claiming a potential shortage of non-engineered seeds and conventional herbicides to replace the Monsanto combination of GMO seeds and Round-Up herbicide.

Andrew Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety's executive director, praised Friday's decision as a major victory in the fight against genetically engineered crops and criticized the Agriculture Department for approving the GMO seeds without a full environmental review.

"Hopefully, the agency will learn that their mandate is to protect farmers, consumers and the environment and not the bottom line of corporations such as Monsanto," Kimbrell said in a statement.

To give the approval, the Agriculture Department now needs to prepare an environmental impact statement. It could take a couple of year's time to get the process done.

Organic farmers, food safety advocates and conservation groups had started the legal process, especially because of the danger that genetically altered crops distribute their genes uncontrolled into other plants, including conventionally grown food, such as chard and table beets in this case.

This fear was unfortunately confirmed in recent findings, where 80 percent of canola plants in hundreds of random probes in North Dakota were found to be genetically modified versions. The researchers also found plants with the combination of 2 genes which is not commercially available, pointing at the reality of plants with various artificial genes reproducing in the wild.

This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader