GM in the media.

Abstract

February 2011 and the early part of March were busy months for GM crops on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. In the US, attention focused on the court cases involving GM-sugarbeet and GM-alfalfa. While the sugarbeet has rapidly been adopted by US producers, with 95% of beets genetically modified, in August 2010 US District Judge Jeffrey White banned future plantings of Monsanto’s Round Up-Ready (RR) sugar beets (which account for more than half of the country's sugar supply) until the federal government had completed a more thorough Environmental Impact Statement. There were not enough non-GM seeds available to replace the banned GM-seeds, with the USDA estimating that the country's sugar supply could run short and domestic farmers losing as much as 21% of their 2011 crop. However, federal regulators have now said that farmers would be able to plant GM-sugar beets this year under certain conditions until the full environmental impact statement is completed. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a preliminary injunction that mandated destruction of RR sugar beets planted under USDA permits. The court concluded that the challengers had failed to demonstrate irreparable harm from allowing the stecklings (seedlings) that the court described as “juvenile sugar beets” to be grown. Jim Greenwood, chief executive officer of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), said "We remain hopeful that this action, along with the decision made last week on Roundup Ready alfalfa, will pave the way for new technologies in the pipeline" . The story was carried in the Wall Street Journal and by the Voice of America in their overseas program.