Concern in Sugar Beet Industry over Injunction

The Sidney, Montana, Herald reports – Area sugar beet growers received disturbing news this week when an injunction was filed in federal court to ban Roundup Ready crops from being planted or processed.

Filing the injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California were the Organic Seed Alliance, Earthjustice, Center for Food Safety, High Mowing Organic Seeds and the Sierra Club.

The groups feel the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved Roundup Ready sugar beets without properly determining their impacts both from an environmental and socioeconomic basis. Opponents of Roundup Ready fear the chance of genetic contamination of organic and conventional crops, increased weed resistance from herbicides and less choice for consumers.

Luther Markwart, executive vice president of the American Sugar Alliance, notes the injunction filed came five years after the deregulation of Roundup Ready and two years after the lawsuit began.

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