Beet Beat: GMO Beets Destroyed Near Ashland

Call it vandalism, a political statement or, as the FBI so quaintly puts it, "economic sabotage," but the fact remains that two fields of genetically modified sugar beets near Ashland were pulled up and left to die.

A story in the Oregonian by Kimberly Wilson described how discussions between the biotech giant Sygenta and local organic seed and vegetable producers had broken down over details of how a "pinning system," which would have established safe distances between crops that could potentially cross-pollinate, would work. It turns out that local organic growers had been unaware that the biotech company had been planting genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready sugar beets in Southern Oregon's Applegate Valley for more than a decade.

The problem is that the genetically modified beets were being grown for their seed (see the Beet Beat series about a similar controversy in the Willamette Valley five years ago). This means that the plants would produce pollen, which one EU study showed can be carried on the wind as far as five miles from the source, and can also be carried by birds, insects, cars and trucks for much greater distances. Since sugar beets are a member of the brassica family, their pollen has the potential to cross-pollinate with any member of that family, including table beets, chard, kale and any number of leafy greens.

This presents a huge difficulty for organic seed and vegetable producers, who are prohibited by stringent organic standards from selling any products that have been contaminated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). One organic seed grower that Wilson spoke with for the article, Chris Hardy, said that "in May, he was forced to destroy a crop of organic chard on a quarter-acre field near Syngenta's after a seed buyer balked at the proximity. [Certified organic farmer Steve] Fry said this summer he'd tilled under 5,000 [table] beets he'd planted about a mile from a Syngenta field, out of concern" over contamination.

Despite these difficult issues, representatives from the pro-GMO and anti-GMO factions had been meeting to hammer out an agreement over pinning their fields, but when it came to divulging exactly where the 30 to 40 fields of GM sugar beets were located, Wilson wrote that "the Sygenta representatives announced the company no longer saw a point in attending meetings and then walked out."

Four days later the first field of beets was destroyed and three days after that the second field of beets was uprooted. Federal investigators are asking for the public's help in tracking down the culprits.

Read the original Beet Beat series about a similar controversy five years ago over sugar beets being grown for seed in the Willamette Valley.

Photo at top of sugar beet damage near Ashland from the Medford Mail Tribune (via OPB News).

Speak Your Mind

You've heard of Big Pharma, the lobbying arm of the big pharmaceutical companies. Well, there's also Big Elsie, and it's trying to water down new federal rules governing organic milk.

The proposed new regulations would clarify the requirement that dairy cows and other ruminants consume a meaningful amount of feed from pasture and grazing. Because this means that the big dairy companies couldn't continue their practice of confining animals in feedlot style operations, they're lobbying the White House Office of Management and Budget to weaken (or eliminate) the new rule.

The Cornucopia Institute, founded by the farmers of Organic Valley, along with FOOD Farmers (the Federation of Organic Dairy Farmers) and GoodStuffNW contributor Anthony Boutard, are urging you to express your concerns to the White House about "respecting the 10 years of collaborative work that has gone into clarifying strict pending regulations for organic livestock, especially requiring pasture." View a sample message here.

You can share your views by calling 202-456-1111 or e-mailing the White House.

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Readers of GoodStuffNW know that I've been reporting on the progress of the lawsuit and recent court decision in the case against the USDA over genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets being grown in the Willamette Valley.

Another similar case involves GE alfalfa, which a federal court banned until the USDA did a thorough environmental impacts statement (EIS). The draft of that statement has now been released and there is a 60-day period that ends on February 16 for the public to make comments.

The Organic Seed Alliance (OSA), based in Port Townsend, Wash., strongly believes the EIS failed to address the economic and environmental consequences of GE alfalfa and sets a dangerous precedent for future deregulation. They are also concerned that it threatens the integrity of organic seed and food systems and the National Organic Program. The Alliance worked with Center for Food Safety staff and others to put together talking points specifically for organic farmers and consumers who want to give input, as well as providing a link to submit comments.

Beet Beat: The Fight Begins in Earnest

Now that a federal judge has ruled against the process that the FDA used to deregulate the planting of genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready sugar beet seeds, industry giants like Monsanto that get their income from those seeds and the pesticides and chemicals those crops depend on are screaming mad.

In a recent report on NPR's business program, Marketplace, it's pointed out that more than half of the country's sugar comes from sugar beets, almost all of which are grown from Monsanto's Roundup Ready seeds. Luther Markwart of the American Sugar Beet Growers Association is quoted as saying "This is a food security issue. We need to make sure that we have a good, strong, viable domestic beet-sugar industry."

Reporter Mitchell Hartman also spoke with Oregon plant breeder and seedsman Frank Morton (left), who produces and sells organic seed for his Wild Garden Seed in Philomath, Oregon. Morton, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, says it's also a food security issue for him and the other organic growers in the Willamette Valley where nearly all of the country's GE sugar beet seed is grown.

"If biotech traits show up in my seeds, then my seeds are worthless," Morton said of his beet and chard crops that are susceptible to cross-pollination from the GE beet pollen. "If my traits show up in conventional or biotech seeds, it's not a big deal to them, it does not destroy their value. It's an asymmetrical relationship we have here."

Judge Jeffrey White has ordered the FDA to produce an environmental impact statement which, the program says, could take years. And on December 4, the plaintiffs are going to ask the judge to issue a permanent injunction "to halt the sale and planting of GE sugarbeet seeds now and into the future, until the USDA does its job to protect consumers and farmers alike," said Zelig Golden, a lawyer with the Center for Food Safety.

The Marketplace report continues, "in a similar case, a judge banned Roundup Ready alfalfa; Monsanto's appealing that decision to the Supreme Court. If there's a ban on sugar beet planting nationwide, it's doubtful there's enough conventional seed in storage to lay in a crop next spring."

Rather than blaming the organic seed industry and farmers like Frank Morton, not to mention the courts, for this problem, maybe we need to look at the corporations that put us in this position in the first place.

Read the other posts in the series: The Beet Beat, In The Wind, The Wheels of Justice, The Wheels of Justice, Part 2.

Photo of Frank Morton by Mitch Lies for the Capital Press.

Beet Beat: The Wheels of Justice, Part 2

My mailbox, like yours, is often full of stuff I don't want and didn't ask for. But once in awhile something appears that makes me shout "Woo hoo!" and dance on the porch. (Fyi, after sixteen years my neighbors have become used to these displays.)

Today was such a day. When I opened the box and pulled out my copy of the Capital Press, an ag newspaper, who should be looking up at me with his big blue eyes but Frank Morton, plant whisperer and activist owner of Wild Garden Seed in Philomath, Oregon. I wrote a profile of Frank for Edible Portland magazine and was taken not only with his passion for plant breeding but his commitment to keeping our common biological heritage out of the hands of corporations.

So it wasn't surprising when he joined a consortium of organic-seed growers, organic farmers and environmental and consumer groups in suing the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) for deregulating the herbicide-tolerant "Roundup Ready" sugar beet seeds developed by Monsanto. Not only to protect his own organic beet and chard seed business from being contaminated from the pollen of the genetically engineered sugar beets also grown in the Willamette Valley, but also to safeguard the crops of organic farmers from the same potentially devastating contamination.

"This is not a political concern," he says in the article titled Organic Grower Inspires Beet Lawsuit. "I was concerned that contamination events would begin to occur that would make my seed worthless."

He initially was not inclined to file a lawsuit. As a member of the Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association, he said he tried to bring up his concerns several times.

"I wanted to talk about this and talk about the impact of having genetically modified crops be a part of the specialy seed mix here in the valley," he is quoted as saying. "But no on wanted to talk about it. It was almost like it was an off-limits subject."

Now that a federal judge has issued a ruling against the USDA's deregulation process, the consortium is asking for an injunction banning new plantings until the environmental assessments are complete. Morton has little sympathy for the genetically modified sugar beet growers who are complaining the injunction would damage their businesses, saying it was obvious that the judge was going to rule against the USDA.

"They painted themselves into a corner with a spray paint can," Morton says. "If there is no beet sugar (next year), it's not my fault and it's not the judge's fault.

"I do feel vindicated," he said, "because everything I said to my fellow seedsmen, the judge has now agreed with."

The full text of the article is available at the Capital Press website, along with a companion article on the reaction of genetically modified sugar beet seed growers. Photo at top by Mitch Lies for the Capital Press.

Read the other posts in the series: The Beet Beat, In The Wind, The Fight Begins in Earnest and The Wheels of Justice.

Beet Beat: The Wheels of Justice

Once in awhile the good guys win, and yesterday justice gave a big ol' smack upside the head to genetically modified seed developers and the people who regulate them. In the process it may help save organic seed growers in Oregon as well as consumers who don't want to eat genetically modified produce.

Harvesting organic seeds at Gathering Together Farm in Philomath.

A little over a year ago I wrote a post about a lawsuit filed by a consortium of organic-seed growers, organic farmers, and environmental and consumer groups against the US Dept. of Agriculture for deregulating the herbicide-tolerant "Roundup Ready" sugar beet seeds developed by Monsanto (read a summary I wrote at Culinate.com). The lawsuit charged that the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement before deregulating RoundUp Ready sugarbeets.

The reason this is important to organic seed growers and consumers of organic produce in Oregon? Because nearly all of the seeds for sugar beets in the United States are grown in the Willamette Valley. Nearly all of those plants and the seeds they produce are genetically engineered. Their pollen can travel on the wind as far as five miles from its source (read a 2001 EU study here), cross-pollinating with fields of organic beets and chard and contaminating the entire crop. And since Oregon only requires a 3-mile "isolation zone" between fields, the problem becomes evident.

Or as Federal District Court Judge White said in his ruling, "In light of the large distances pollen can travel by wind and the context that seed for sugar beets, Swiss chard and table beets are primarily grown in one valley in Oregon, Plaintiffs have demonstrated that deregulation may significantly effect the environment."

The decision was announced today on the Organic Seed Alliance blog, and you can now download a pdf of the full text of the decision. The remedy phase of the case will occur on October 30. I'll keep you posted!

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UPDATE (9/24/09): Read the sugar beet industry's response to the ruling here.

Read the other posts in the series: The Beet Beat, In The Wind, The Fight Begins in Earnest, The Wheels of Justice, Part 2.

Photo of seed harvest by Torsten Kjellstrand for The Oregonian.

Beet Beat: In The Wind

In a very well-written story, Oregonian reporter Scott Learn picked up on the subject I posted about last February on the danger to Oregon's organic beet and chard growers from GMO sugar beets. Titled "Oregon's Organic Farmers Fight Genetically Modified Seeds," Learn lays out the issues that led to a lawsuit filed by a consortium of organic-seed growers, organic farmers, and environmental and consumer groups to stop the growing of so-called Round-Up Ready sugar beet seeds.

As I wrote in a summary on the issue for Culinate.com, the lawsuit alleges that wind-blown pollen from these GMO beets could contaminate nearby crops of conventional sugar beets as well as other closely related crops, such as chard and table beets, and harm the burgeoning organic farming and organic seed-production industries in the valley.

The availability of organic chard and table beets at farmers’ markets and stores could also be affected if the produce is found to be contaminated by cross-pollination (or outcrossing) between the GMO beets and nearby fields of organic vegetables. A European Union study conducted in 2001 found that wind-blown sugar-beet pollen could be detected up to five miles from its source. The state of Oregon only requires three miles of isolation between GMO fields and non-GMO fields.

The Oregonian's Learn also spoke to seedsman and activist Frank Morton, whom I profiled for Edible Portland magazine.

"'Who's responsible if it isn't on a leash?' says Morton, sunburned, earnest and blunt. 'I'm a certified organic seed grower, and if (his crops) were to get contaminated with any detectable amount of transgenic sugar beet pollen, my product becomes worthless.'"

Read the other posts in the series: The Beet Beat, The Fight Begins in Earnest, The Wheels of Justice, The Wheels of Justice, Part 2.

Photo of threshing organic chard for its seed at Gathering Together Farm in Philomath, Oregon, by Torsten Kjellstrand for The Oregonian.

The Beet Beat

There has been sugar from genetically modified sugar beets in your Hersheys bars for nearly three years now. And lest you Mars Bars eaters think you're off the hook, they've got GMO sugar in them, too. Though the sugar industry says that since the sugar doesn't contain any DNA, just sucrose, there's nothing to worry about. The candy people themselves aren't saying anything, hoping that the issue will just go away.

The sugar beet

The reason I know this is because there was a lawsuit filed last week by a consortium of organic-seed growers, organic farmers, and environmental and consumer groups against the US Dept. of Agriculture for deregulating the herbicide-tolerant "Roundup Ready" sugar beet seeds developed by Monsanto (read a summary I wrote at Culinate.com).

Table beets

You may be saying, with good reason, "Why should I care? I don't eat candy bars." And you'd have a point. Except that the Willamette Valley is the primary source of sugar beet seeds in the country, and those Roundup Ready seeds are being planted this winter.

Chard

Again, you could say, "So what?" But, you see, the sugar beet is essentially the same plant, beta vulgaris, as the red and yellow table beets and chard that you serve to your family. All of these depend on wind-born pollen to develop seeds, and this pollen can travel (according to an EU study in 2001) as far as 5 miles away from its source.

And since Oregon only requires a 3-mile "isolation zone" between fields, the problem becomes evident. That's why the organic farmers and seed growers were so alarmed that they went to court to try to stop it, and why you should care. I'll definitely be keeping you apprised!

Read the other posts in the series: In The Wind, The Fight Begins in Earnest, The Wheels of Justice and The Wheels of Justice, Part 2.