By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Sugar beet growers that have been using Roundup Ready sugar beets will be able to keep using them for the upcoming season, according to a spokesman for the industry.
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White, of San Francisco declined to immediately ban the continued use of genetically modified (GM) beets, which are now in use by many sugar beet farmers. The beets contain a bacterial gene that makes them impervious to Roundup, a Monsanto-produced herbicide.

The Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, Sierra Club and Mowing Organic Seeds sued the USDA in January 2008, arguing on several points, but mainly that GM beets will contaminate the organic seed supply.

These groups won a victory in September when White ruled that the approval of GM beets was premature, saying that the USDA needed to conduct an environmental impact statement. What wasn’t decided then was whether the beets could continue to be used while the product is further evaluated.

Luther Markwart, vice president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Assoc., said developments since the judge’s ruling in September have been positive for the industry. On Dec. 4, White said at a hearing that the parties should get together for a mediation. They did so on Dec. 21 and nothing came of it, Markwart said. What is of immediate importance could be not so much what the judge said but what he didn’t say.

“There is nothing that the judge has said at this point that would prevent farmers from planting Roundup sugar beets,” Markwart said. “I think the good thing is he’s asked to get documents and depose witnesses. With an important decision like this it’s good to have all the evidence.”

The Sugar Industry Biotech Council (SIBC) put out a statement Dec. 8 that sounded similarly optimistic:

“The (SIBC) is pleased that Judge White has allowed a settlement conference with a U.S. magistrate no later than Feb. 4, 2010. Additionally, we are encouraged that the court has allowed limited discovery, which will provide an opportunity to obtain interviews and documentation from the plaintiffs.”

According to Markwart, the settlement conference and mediation were one and the same thing. At the Dec. 4 hearing White also scheduled the filing of briefs on remedies.

“Between March 12 and May 21, there will be briefs by the plaintiffs and documents go back and forth,” he said.

Right now, he’s scheduled oral arguments for June 11, 2010. It is not certain at this point whether a full evidentiary hearing will be scheduled. Such a hearing would draw the process out further, according to Markwart.

Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety – one of the plaintiffs in the case – said that the court has not yet decided what it will do regarding future plantings of GM beets.
“So far the court has followed the alfalfa model,” Kimbrell said, referring to a court’s decision to require a more thorough assessment of GM alfalfa before farmers could continue planting it. “It gets a lot of farmers in a difficult situation when the government doesn’t do the things it should.”