Court Rejects Genetically Modified Sugar Beets

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/23-4

Published on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle

Court Rejects Genetically Modified Sugar Beets
by Bob Egelko

SAN FRANCISCO -- The government illegally approved a genetically modified, herbicide-resistant strain of sugar beets without adequately considering the chance they will contaminate other beet crops, a federal judge in San Francisco has ruled.

Sugar beet at harvest time (Flickr photo by grabe)
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White rejected the U.S. Department of Agriculture's decision in 2005 to allow Monsanto Co. to sell the sugar beets, known as "Roundup-Ready" because they are engineered to coexist with Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

Sugar beets produce 30 percent of the world's sugar and, according to consumer groups, half the granulated sugar in the United States. This year's planting, centered in Oregon's Willamette Valley, is the first to include a full crop of the Monsanto product.

White said the USDA, in concluding that the new crop would have no significant environmental effects, discounted the likelihood that wind-borne pollen would spread to fields where conventional sugar beets, table beets and the beet variety known as Swiss chard are grown.

Planting genetically modified sugar beets has a "significant effect" on the environment, White said in his ruling Monday, because of "the potential elimination of a farmer's choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically engineered food."

..more..

With angry murmurs amongst themselves before walking out of the courtroom.

"Those are REALLY genetically-modified beets," an observer said. No comment from Dwight Schrute.

TlalocW

Planting genetically modified sugar beets has a "significant effect" on the environment, White said in his ruling Monday, because of the potential elimination of a farmer's choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically engineered food."

We have no right to eat non-GMO food. We are mere, human lab rats in the agro-industries' global experiment to increase corporate profits and eliminate smaller, family-run type farms from in favour of large, corporately owned, factory farms. As such, consumers have no right to expect that we should have access to food we can be confident has not been contaminated by their genetic experimentation and tinkering. The lab rat has no right to complain to the mad scientist about what goop he is being force fed for lunch.

Thanks for the link.

Good for the court, its great to see informed people in power.

it's not nice to fuck with Mother Nature . . .

nt

"You're not allowed to object! Have you never heard of breeding?!"
like that's even remotely the same as GMing

...from what I've read about Monsanto, they sound like real scumbags. They sue small farms when pollen from Monsanto's fields enters the small farm. Sounds like this decision addresses this potential outcome.

This is a good start, unfortunately, it's coming from the courts and not the USDA.

Anybody with .33 of a brain can see that Monsanto has failed to disclosed the thousands of issues that add up to make GMO Food crops a direct threat to Biodiversity and the long term health of the Citizen's that consume this untested, heavily marketed crap unknowingly.

Simply because of Michael Taylor's platform of "Substantial Equivalence", there is no way a consumer would know if they were eating GMO food, unless they test it themselves. Ok, that's fair right? Well, where would you go to test your zuchini for GMO status? How much would it cost? What benefit would you get when you found out, after a few weeks?

The fact of the matter is that we need mandatory labeling of GMO Food in the United States, just like they do in 51 other countries of the world who haven't received a mandate from the Government to fast track this technology like Poppa Bush and Dan Quayle did in 1990 in order "To corner the market and become a leader in BioTech"

Fast Tracking meant cutting corners, and looking the other way in order to pump billions of our tax dollars into subsidizing Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, DOW, and ADM in order to cram GMO food into our food supply with adequate assesment of risk, health, or environmental pollution.