by BETTER FARMING STAFF
The sugar beet harvest has begun in southwestern Ontario and while growers know there’s a destination for this year’s projected 300,000-tonnes crop, a recent U.S. court decision has placed a question mark on the industry’s future on either side of the border.
“We can lift all the beets and process them all – this year,” says Glenn Jack, chair of the Ontario Sugarbeet Growers’ Association. “For next year, if the ruling holds, I don’t think there’ll be a sugar beet left in North America.”
Delivered August 13 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the ruling rescinded the United States Department of Agriculture’s approval of Roundup Ready (RR) sugar beets for commercial planting.
The Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, Sierra Club and High Mowing Organic Seeds had initiated the court action. One of the groups’ concerns was the possibility of cross-pollination between the RR sugar beets and crops such as red beets and Swiss chard.
The genetically modified beets have been in commercial use in the United States. and Canada since 2008. They make up 95 per cent of the U.S. crop and 100 per cent of the crop in Ontario.
In his order, District Judge Jeffrey White ruled that the department should not have approved the genetically engineered sugar beets without first preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS).
He chided the department for not taking the environmental review process seriously, noted that he “was inclined to order the Defendant-Interveners to take all efforts, going forward, to use conventional seed,” and wrote that he was “troubled” that 95 per cent of the sugar beet crop being genetically engineered would be the status quo while the review took place. He dismissed the environmental groups’ request for a permanent injunction on the production of RR sugar beets.
U.S. law requires genetically engineered products to be regulated, tightly controlling their sale and distribution. To relieve these controls, an application to the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) must be made to deregulate the product.
Obtaining an EIS is part of the deregulation process. However, the inspection service can waive this requirement if a shorter environmental assessment indicates that the product won’t have significant impact.
That was the approach taken to deregulate RR sugar beets. Industry representatives now hope the department will partially deregulate the beets while undertaking the review, which won’t be finished until May 2012. Last week, the department confirmed it is evaluating a request for partial deregulation.
However, Luther Markwart, executive vice president of the American Sugar Beet Growers Association, says the announcement did not contain enough details to predict the final outcome.
“It was really a message that says I think they understand the urgency of this issue and they are actively working to see if they can find a solution,” he says.
Markwart notes that growers would need to know the specifics before they make decisions on ordering seed, a task that usually happens by late November.
He says the environmental groups’ concerns about cross-pollination relates mainly to flowering seed stock (75 per cent of the commercial seed generated is female, which means that its pollen does not contain the Roundup Ready gene). Concern about cross-pollination is why the industry has adopted isolation distances of four miles from other crops for the seed stock, he says. Seeds for both Canadian and U.S. growers are produced in Oregon.
Jack says there’s concern that if growers have to go back to conventional seeds there won’t be any available. “It takes like a year and a half at least to produce the seed,” he says.
He says studies suggest “we’re far better off with roundup seeds than conventional. Less herbicide and less toxic herbicides.”
Trish Jordan, public affairs director, communications for Monsanto Canada, which provides the Roundup Ready technology, says the U.S. court decision should have no impact on Canadian growers because it “has to do with the USDA, so obviously our regulatory approvals are not contingent on that.” She says seed available for the 2010 planting season was produced “quite some time ago.”
“The bottom line right now is clearly the product is very highly valued by growers. It’s also very highly valued and accepted by the sugar industry. So I don’t foresee that changing; I think they’re going to obviously continue to need sugar.” BF
