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GE Sugar: Coming Soon to Candy In You?

by · February 14th, 2008
Farming, Food Justice, Food Safety, Organic

Hey Friends,

Sorry to be the bearer of scary news on Valentines Day, but if you thought GMOs in your tofu was a bummer, guess what Monsanto is bringing you next – yep, GE sugar for your Valentine!

About half of sugar produced in the U.S. comes from sugar beets (the other half is cane sugar). In the next few weeks, sugar beet farmers throughout the U.S. will be considering what type of sugar beets to plant, and food companies will have to decide what types of sugar they will accept.

And this year, there is something new for farmers and the sugar cooperatives to choose from — Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet, genetically engineered to survive direct application of the weed killer, Roundup.

In addition to the specter of eating GE sugar, the sugar that comes from these novel plants will also have much heavier loads of pesticides on them. At the request of Monsanto, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency increased the allowable amount of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup that kills plants) residues on sugar beetroots by a whopping 5000% at the time USDA permitted the growing us GE sugar beets. The inevitable result is more glyphosate pesticide in our sugar.

Another scary part of this story is that sugar beet seeds are grown in Oregon’s Wilamette Valley, the same place where much of the nations organic chard and table beet seed is grown. Because sugar beets, table beets and chard are all the same species, their pollen readily mixes with each other, creating a serious threat of contaminating chard and table beet seed stocks with GE genes. This is a serious threat to our organic seed producers in the Valley.

In 2001, Hershey’s, M&M Mars, and American Crystal Sugar told consumers they would not use genetically engineered sugar. But now that sugar beets are close to being planted commercially, they have made no such assurances, and word in the fields is that by spring of next year, 30-50% of sugar beets will be GE.

In response to this development, my organization – the Center for Food Safety – filed an environmental lawsuit challenging the USDA commercial deregulation of Monsanto’s GE sugar beet.  You can see the complaint here.

And if GE sweets in your treats gives you the willies, take a little action to the tell Hershey’s, M&M Mars, and American Crystal (the largest beet sugar cooperative) that you don’t want this stuff.  Click here.

I’ll keep you posted as our work to stop the GE sugar beets progresses.

Zelig

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8 Responses to “GE Sugar: Coming Soon to Candy In You?”

  1. Dallas Flynn Says:
    February 14th, 2008 at 8:40 pm

    I live near Fargo-Moorhead Minnesota and it is true Crystal Sugar has published that they will be using GMO sugar beets in the year 2008. We now have chosen to use only sugar from cane. I also will not help in the sugar beet harvest as I have done in the past many many years. I wrote to the company but as usual it fell on deaf ears. The only way to fix the problem is not use there product. Monsanto is rearing it ugly head again, and then they ask us to buy american get real and put GMO sugar on your GMO corn flakes and soon you will glow from gread and stupidity. Dallas a Natural Certified Grown farmer who loves this land, I will not sell out.

  2. Easy Bean Farm Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 10:08 am

    This issue of genetically modified sugar beets is a tough one, though, in truth, the entire commercial sugar industry causes a massive environmental problem as it is. I live in western MN farming organic vegetable crops (I believe that Zelig dug potatoes on my farm one summer years back)and Sugar Beets are one of the four major crops that are planted, largely to support the beet sugar plant in Renville, MN. At this time, without Round Up Ready genetics, sugar beets, and the sugar beet industry, is among the most polluting of all of the regions crops. Beets require massive applications of fertilizer and are a major contributor to the appearance of high levels of nitrates in ground water and area wells. Additionally, the conversion of the beets into refined sugar uses massive amount of water and leaves a high phosphorus residue which is discharged into the Minnesota River and has been responsible for some of the water quality problems and at least one fish-kill. Similarly, the production and refinement of most cane sugar also causes a great environmental hazard.
    While the thought of even more herbicide residue being allowed on sugar beet roots seems a bit sketchy in a gut-reaction sort of way, likely this is not a good point on which to make the case against GE sugar beets. The beets themselves are subjected to much higher concentrations of chemicals in processing and then are highly refined using high heat to the point of creating a fairly “pure” (molecularly) product. The real point is the problems with genetic drift and the fact that all of us, as taxpayers, are helping to artificially support such an unprofitable and environmentally unsound product through our current ag policy.

  3. Leah Koenig Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 10:11 am

    Here’s an article from the NY Times from a couple months ago with additonal information on GE sugar beets:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11.....038;st=nyt

  4. Zelig Golden Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    Here’s an NPR story on the sugar beet that Dan Charles ran yesterday…

    “Genetically Engineering the Sweet Stuff”, on All Things Considered, February 14, 2008
    http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....d=18817571

  5. Zelig Golden Says:
    February 15th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

    Mike (Easy Bean Farm),
    Hey, great to see on you on JCarrot! And thanks for your input on the sugar beet story.

    I think you’re right that the cross-contamination issue is the scarier part of the story here – organic seed farmers in Wilammette Valley, Oregon, and farmers accross the U.S. who rely on organic chard and table beet seed from the Likes of High Mowing Seed are seriously at risk.

    Agronomists tell me that Beta vulgaris species, which includes sugar beets, table beets, chard, and fodder beets, produces massive amounts of very fine pollen that can be carried by wind many miles – and that if the Wilammette Valley becomes permanent home to Beta Seeds, Inc.’s GE sugar beet seed growing operation, that one of the most prime places in the country for organic Beta vulgaris seed production will be lost do to inevitable contamination.

    On the pesticide issue, I think its noteworthy that EPA increased chemical tolderances by 5000% right after USDA approved the first version of the GE sugar beet – and consumers need to know how their sugar is changing.

    Mike – Hope you are well! Will you be at MOSES? If so, please come find me (table 209 in the exhibition hall).

    Shabbat Shalom!
    z

  6. Jerry Silberman Says:
    February 16th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    Sugar? Haven’t used sugar in my house for years. Actually have about 3 pounds of the stuff I discovered in the back of a closet I was cleaning. Mars and Hershey? We’d all be better off not eating the stuff at all; be healthier for us and the planet.

    While GM food is clearly a threat to our health and the planet, cleaning up our act by eating locally grown and healthy stuff is clearly superior to asking that our obesity generating junk food be “clean”

    Feeding candy bars to minors should be prosecutable as child molestation……

  7. Jen R. Says:
    February 18th, 2008 at 11:21 am

    I recently wrote both Hershey’s and Kellogg’s trying to convince them that the direction they are heading with GMO sugar beet sugar is wrong and was patted on the head and told by both companies that they would NEVER put anything in their food that would harm their customers or their over 100 years of selling “wholesome” foods. What a crock! When HAS their food been wholesome.

    It’s just the same old rhetoric they have been preaching. The only way we will convince these big companies is by boycotting their products, period. The media hasn’t helped either because everyone I have ever spoken to about GMOs has been ignorant that they are in the food system right now. Monsanto’s cover up is working.

  8. Laura Berry Says:
    March 3rd, 2008 at 10:12 pm

    The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (www.iccr.org) goes live tomorrow afternoon with an action-oriented site. We are very troubled by this latest development and we hope concerned individuals must speak up. The new site should make it easy.

    http://www.dontplantGMObeets.org

    Check it out. And do let us know what you think.

    Thank you.

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