Gene-modified sugar beets in Rupert, Idaho. Photo by Chad Case for The New York Times
A ruling on Monday could have a dramatic impact on agriculture in Idaho and the Northwest. According to the New York Times:
“A federal judge has ruled that the government failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of genetically engineered sugar beets before approving the crop for cultivation in the United States. The decision could lead to a ban on the planting of the beets, which have been widely adopted by farmers.
In a decision issued Monday, Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said that the Agriculture Department should have done an environmental impact statement. He said it should have assessed the consequences from the likely spread of the genetically engineered trait to other sugar beets or to the related crops of Swiss chard and red table beets.
The decision echoes another ruling two years ago by a different judge in the same court involving genetically engineered alfalfa. In that case, the judge later ruled that farmers could no longer plant the genetically modified alfalfa until the Agriculture Department wrote the environmental impact statement. Two years later, there is still no such assessment and the alfalfa, with rare exceptions, is not being grown.”
In a previously aired Edible Idaho broadcast, I interviewed investigative reporter Matt Jenkins on the genetically engineered alfalfa ruling. As in the current case, he said the alfalfa ban centered on the issue of “transgenic creep,” the unintended drift of genetically modified plant material to other plants. Matt Jenkins:
“. . . even in 2005, the same year that this stuff [GM alfalfa] was approved for commercial planting, there’s some evidence from independent seed companies that their seed stock was getting contaminated . . . This is something that a lot of the farmers I spoke to in Idaho are really divided about and created some fairly serious tension between farmers who’ve lived next to each, right side by side for years and years.”
Here’s a link to that story: http://www.nwfoodnews.com/2007/07/01/genetically-modified-alfalfa-creeps-into-controversy/
Those same tensions appear to have reemerging in the sugar beet debate. In his Federal District Court ruling Judge White said there was evidence that the pollen from genetically engineered sugar beets might spread to non-engineered beets, thus leading to “potential elimination of farmer’s choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer’s choice to eat non-genetically engineered food.”
As of Tuesday, representatives for the Agriculture Department and Monsanto, which makes the genetically engineered sugar beets and alfalfa, were unavailable for comment. However, a spokesman for the 10,000-member American Sugar Beet Growers Association, said the organization was “looking forward to aggressively advocating” for those wanting to grow the Monsanto-altered crop.
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Guy Hand is a writer, public radio producer and photographer specializing in food and agriculture. |
