Judge will decide following March 5 hearing whether to restrict seed

By WES SANDER
Capital Press

Plaintiffs in a lawsuit concerning genetically engineered sugarbeet seeds will argue March 5 for a preliminary injunction that would block the production or planting of the seeds, and the processing of beets produced by the seeds at least until June.

In September, federal Judge Jeffery White ordered USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to produce an environmental impact statement to support its deregulation of seed developer Monsanto's Roundup Ready seeds.

The suit was filed in January 2008 by the Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, Sierra Club and High Mowing Organic Seeds.

Now the court must decide whether, or under what circumstances, the seeds can be used in the meantime. White has scheduled a June hearing for litigants to argue whether the court should place an injunction on the industry's use of the seeds.

To address the intervening months, litigants will argue at a March 5 hearing in San Francisco whether a preliminary injunction should restrict use of the seeds until June. A decision is expected relatively quickly.

The timing of both hearings is critical. Depending on the weather, Idaho growers typically begin planting sugarbeets around the first of April.

To win an injunction, plaintiffs must show that irreparable harm is likely to result from allowing the production and use of the seeds. The Center for Food Safety wants a halt to all production and use of the seed, along with the growing and processing of the beets grown from them.

In court documents, USDA said such an "overbroad" injunction would unnecessarily penalize producers and processors, "decimating the entire sugar beet industry and almost half of the nation's domestic sugar supply for multiple years."

Plaintiffs argue that sufficient conventional seed exists to plant a crop this year. Whether seed producers possess stockpiles of conventional seed has remained unclear.

Defendants complain that the suit was filed three years after APHIS deregulated the seed. But plaintiffs argue that while deregulation came in 2005, they didn't believe a challenge was necessary until late in 2007, when the industry began to widely adopt the seed.