Analysis

By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI

Capital Press

The sugar beet industry has found itself in the unusual position of simultaneously defending a government policy while also attacking it.

The policy at issue is USDA's decision to partially deregulate the cultivation of genetically engineered Roundup Ready sugar beets, which can withstand glyphosate herbicides.

A recent court document filed by sugar beet farmers, cooperatives and biotech developers lays out several arguments in favor of partial deregulation, concluding that USDA fully complied with environmental law.

However, the document then goes on to say the strict conditions attached to partial deregulation of the crop are "unduly burdensome" and "simply go too far."

Specifically, the sugar beet industry objects to the mandatory nationwide four-mile isolation distance between transgenic sugar beet seed crops and other seed crops from the same genus.

That restriction was intended to prevent cross-pollination between conventional and transgenic crops, but the industry claims it's unnecessary to impose these isolation distances throughout the U.S.

Though the four-mile isolation distance makes sense in Oregon's Willamette Valley, the main region where sugar beet seeds are grown, it's impractical for small-scale research and development sites outside that area, the document said.

The USDA also requires that farmers continuously monitor their root crops for premature bolters -- plants that go to seed early -- after April 1 to prevent cross-pollination.

The industry contends this date is too rigid, since sugar beets haven't even been planted by April 1 in some growing regions where the ground is still frozen.

It would be more pragmatic to require monitoring to begin a month or two after planting, the document said.

Finally, the industry believes the standards for transporting transgenic sugar beet seed are too stringent.

Seeds must be sealed in a primary container that's placed within a secondary container, which is then "enclosed in a sturdy outer shipping container" and transported in an enclosed truck.

These rules have the "counterintuitive result" of making the transport of partially deregulated crop seeds more onerous than those of a fully regulated crop, the document said.

According to the industry, these requirements are "arbitrary and capricious" in violation of administrative law and should be set aside.

Attorneys for the biotech critic Center for Food Safety, on the other hand, argue that the USDA's restrictions are much too lenient.

In a recent court filing, the group claims the agency has ignored "extensive contamination in the Willamette Valley at distances far greater than the four-mile isolation" that's intended to protect farmers.

The group alleges USDA approved partial deregulation despite knowledge of this evidence, the specifics of which have been redacted from the court document for confidentiality reasons.

According to the Center for Food Safety, USDA's environmental analysis of the partial deregulation policy was "fundamentally flawed" because commercialization was "a predetermined outcome."

The group contends that partial deregulation should have been subjected to a comprehensive "environmental impact statement" and the policy should be overturned by the court.