by PATRICIA GROTENHUIS and BETTER FARMING STAFF
Ontario sugar beet growers hope they will still be able to grow Roundup Ready sugar beets after a U.S. court delivers its decision concerning a case about the variety. If not, it could cut the number of Ontario growers in half and possibly spell the end of the industry in this province, warns the chairman of the Ontario Sugar Beet Growers Association.
“We’re defending our position with scientific evidence,” says Glenn Jack, the association’s chairman.
On March 17, California federal district Judge Jeffrey White ruled that Roundup Ready technology could be used for the 2010 growing season. A decision on subsequent growing seasons is not expected, however, until July 9.
The decision is the latest event in a two-year effort by environmental and food groups, such as the Sierra Club and The Center for Food Safety, to ban the variety in the United States. In 2008, the groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approving the technology. In 2009, Judge White overturned the federal department’s approval of the variety, ruling that it should have conducted an environmental assessment before giving the approval. The judge ordered the department to provide an environmental impact statement about the crop.
Judge White’s most recent decision relates to a motion the environmental and food groups filed in January 2010 calling for an injunction against further planting, cultivation and processing of the Roundup Ready sugar beets. The groups are concerned there is potential for the beets to cross-pollinate and contaminate not only conventional varieties of the beets but also table beets and organic chard crops. They have also expressed concern that the variety will speed the spread of weeds resistant to conventional herbicides.
Roundup Ready sugar beets were introduced for commercial use to Ontario growers in 2008 but the Canadian government had approved the variety, created by Monsanto, in 2005. In 2008, the variety made up 40 per cent of growers crops north of the border. Since then, it has accounted for 100 per cent of the crop.
Ontario’s 94 sugar beet producers grow 9,500 acres of the crop. They ship the crop to the Croswell, Michigan processing plant. If the ban is successful, all Ontario producers and a large majority of U.S. producers will have to return to conventional varieties.
Jack says a return to conventional sugar beets raises issues. No research has been done on conventional herbicides for the crop in recent years. Herbicides available do not work as well as Roundup, requiring more passes for less weed control. Jack also notes the conventional herbicides are often more expensive and harmful than Roundup.
“I believe we would lose at least half of our growers, and it probably would wipe out the industry (in Ontario),” says Jack.
It would take at least two years before producers would be able to access conventional seed because of the low reserves of conventional seeds, says Brian Fox, a grower from Dover Centre who allocates 600 of his 2,500 acres to the crop.
Fox says a ban on the Roundup Ready variety “certainly would not be positive, but I’m sure we would survive one way or another.”
As one of two Canadian representatives on U.S. and Canadian Sugar Industry Biotech Council (formed to educate the public on biotechnology advancements), Fox follows the case closely.
“The sugar’s the same and I don’t think any rational person can dispute that,” says Fox.
Producers in Lambton and Kent counties have already have some acres planted, and with the nice weather this week, many more seeds will be in the ground shortly. BF
