Friday, the US District Court for the Northern District of California revoked USDA's approval of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets until an environmental impact statement is completed, according to the New York Times.
The case, Center for Food Safety, et al. v. Vilsack (No. C 08-00484 JSW), was brought by the Center for Food Safety, "a Washington advocacy group that opposes biotech crops," the Sierra Club, and Organic Seed organizations.
The decision, issued by Judge Jeffrey S. White, "could cause major problems for sugar beet farmers and sugar processors." The ruling effectively bans the planting of GM sugar beets, "which make up about 95 percent of the crop," until USDA prepares the environmental impact statement and approves the crop again. This "might take a couple of years."
Beets "supply about half of the nation's sugar, with the rest coming from sugar cane. Sugar beet growers sold the 2007-8 crop for about $1.335 billion, according to government data."
The Wall Street Journal reports that while the decision blocks planting of GM sugar beets in the future, farmers can harvest the crop already in the ground this fall and it may be sold as sugar. The plants are modified with genes that give them "immunity to glyphosate-based herbicide." In other words, they are Roundup-resistant, just as the majority of corn, soybeans, and cotton grown in the US.
Judge White "expressed little sympathy for any disruption his decision might cause" according to the Associated Press. He stated in the opinion that regulators had time to "prepare for the disruption because he had already overturned the deregulation of the genetically altered beets in a decision issued last September."
The Sugar Industry Biotech Council stated that "it intends to help the Agriculture Department come up with 'interim measures' that would allow continued production of the genetically altered seeds while regulators conduct their environmental review."
Judge White declined to issue a permanent injunction, stating that an injunction was not necessary. In June 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a District Court abused its discretion in issuing an injunction
in a case involving GM alfalfa, Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms. For more information about this case, click here to read a US Ag&Food Law and Policy blog post on the subject.
To read the full text of the opinion in Center for Food Safety, et al. v. Vilsack click here.
To read the New York Times story, click here.
To read the Wall Street Journal story, click here.
To read the AP story, click here.
Posted: 08/16/2010
