Sugar beet injunction ruling

expected within days

By WES SANDER
Capital Press

SAN FRANCISCO -- Judge Jeffrey White told litigants in federal court on Friday he would further review court briefings before deciding whether to restrict the use of Roundup Ready sugar beets.

White is expected to decide in the next few days whether, or under what conditions, the industry can grow or handle any beets or seeds produced from seed developer Monsanto's genes.

In September, White ordered USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to produce an environmental impact statement (EIS) to support the seeds' deregulation. The suit was filed in January 2008 by the Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, Sierra Club and High Mowing Organic Seeds.

The plaintiffs filed a petition in January seeking a preliminary injunction banning farmers from planting the seeds, and processors from using beets produced from the seeds.

The preliminary injunction would apply until June, when the sides are scheduled to argue again whether permanent restrictions should apply while USDA completes an environmental document.

Monsanto engineers the seeds to resist glyphosate, the active ingredient in the company's Roundup herbicide. An estimated 95 percent of the industry now uses the seeds.

With extensive briefs filed on both sides, White rejected any further advocacy at the hearing, instead requesting only factual answers to a list of questions. But litigants disagreed over several points, including whether a major sugar company had informed growers last year that sufficient seed existed to support a conventional crop.

Plaintiffs' attorney Paul Atchitoff of Earthjustice disputed claims of potential economic harm to growers who have already made planting decisions for the year, saying they could have chosen conventional seeds knowing an injunction was possible.

Monsanto has claimed an injunction could cause billions of dollars' worth of harm to the industry. That potential damage could have been minimized had plaintiffs not waited until January to request the preliminary injunction, said industry attorney Gilbert Keteltas.

Keteltas rejected Atchitoff's claim that procedural uncertainties prevented the plaintiffs from filing sooner.

"There is one party in this room who holds the keys to an injunction," he said. "It was the plaintiffs."

Monsanto has argued in court briefings that no harm to other crops has been shown, despite Roundup Ready sugar beets having accounted for 60 percent of domestic sugar beets in 2006 and 95 percent by 2007.

But White asked for clarification of an incident in Oregon in which genetically engineered plant material made its way into potting soil, an incident that the industry said would not occur with precautions currently in place.

Atchitoff said the episode only illustrates the "extraordinary difficulty of containing genetically engineered crops for any length of time."

"This is by no means the first incident, or the second or third or fourth," he said.

Sugar beets account for about 50 percent of the domestic sugar supply. Nearly all of the seeds are grown in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Those seeds are then grown for sugar in Idaho, California and several states in the West and Midwest.

The timing of White's ruling is critical. Planting in much of growing area typically begins as early as April 1.