December 27, 2007
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jodie Buller
(360) 336-5087
(Mount Vernon, WA) After seven years of keeping sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets out of their food, Kellogg, Hershey's and the Wyoming based American Crystal Sugar say that they will now starting using sugar made from (GE) beets.
The decision marks a turnaround for Crystal Sugar, the nation's largest sugar producer, which declared in May of this year that it had no plans to use GE sugar beets, and indicated that herbicide-resistant varieties developed using biotechnology would not "be sold, given away, distributed, or planted in year 2007." They did not however, mention the year 2008 and beyond.
Now, according to a recent article in the New York Times, the food giants have softened to the idea because public resistance to GE foods seems to have faded. They now support the introduction because it will increase yields and, unlike other GE foods, GE beet sugar will allegedly have no genetically engineered strands of altered DNA or proteins left in it by the time it’s processed into sugar. Essentially, the GE beet creates the same sucrose as an everyday sugar beet. This has been an important distinction for the industry as a way to assuage consumer concerns and expand the sugar beet market, which is the source for about half of American sugar.
Produced by Monsanto, GE beets are also called Roundup Ready Beets because their DNA has been altered to survive applications of Roundup weed-killer. The glyphosate based herbicide Roundup is widely used to kill weeds, but is strong enough to kill crops. A genetically engineered beet is resistant to Roundup, allowing farmers to kill the weeds and keep the beets.
But the health risks of glyphosate are poorly understood. Some studies have connected glyphosate exposure to cancer, organ damage in animals, human reproduction and fetal development. Glyphosate has also created super-weeds, resistant to the herbicide much like humans are becoming resistant to some antibiotics.
While the ecological and health issues are debated, the often overlooked factor in the increasing use of GM seed and food is that it gives Monsanto a great deal of control over the production of food. A handful of corporations like Monsanto are involved in agricultural biotechnology. Their products of genetically modified corn, soybeans and sugar beets are then patented much like the work of other inventors in order to limit the way seeds can be used and distributed. Biotech patents have been controversial however because the companies are patenting biology, DNA, the basic structure of life and then claiming it as their invention in order to sell it.
While organizations like the Organic Consumers Organization’s Millions Against Monsanto campaign against biotechnology, Monsanto continues to develop new seed technologies. As it expands the number of patents it has on those technologies it will also expand its power to sue individual producers and control the market. In doing so, Vandana Shiva, a physicist, farmers’ rights activist and author of Monocultures of the Mind argues that farmers and ranchers using GM seeds will continue to find themselves limited by GM seed rather than enabled by it. As she writes, “Corporate strategies and products can lead to diversification of commodities; they cannot enrich nature’s diversity.”
Genetically modified beets have already been grown on 300 acres in Idaho during test trials for Monsanto and another 2,200 acres in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin. While sugar beet farmers await the outcome of these trials and the products full release next year, the sugar industry is keeping a low profile about their use of GM beets in order to reduce the chance of a public outcry according to the New York Times. To further protect its interests, Monsanto recently hired Parven Pomper Schulyer Inc. to lobby the federal government on agriculture, trade and tax issues. With this effort and continued growth in GM foods, Monsanto “expects to double the gross profit potential of business from the end of 2007 through 2012.”
(Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel - New West Network)
For more information on issues related to GMO and US and International food production, visit
http://www.thecampaign.org
and
http://www.organicconsumers.org
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jodie Buller
(360) 336-5087
And the Beet Goes On
(Mount Vernon, WA) After seven years of keeping sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets out of their food, Kellogg, Hershey's and the Wyoming based American Crystal Sugar say that they will now starting using sugar made from (GE) beets.
The decision marks a turnaround for Crystal Sugar, the nation's largest sugar producer, which declared in May of this year that it had no plans to use GE sugar beets, and indicated that herbicide-resistant varieties developed using biotechnology would not "be sold, given away, distributed, or planted in year 2007." They did not however, mention the year 2008 and beyond.
Now, according to a recent article in the New York Times, the food giants have softened to the idea because public resistance to GE foods seems to have faded. They now support the introduction because it will increase yields and, unlike other GE foods, GE beet sugar will allegedly have no genetically engineered strands of altered DNA or proteins left in it by the time it’s processed into sugar. Essentially, the GE beet creates the same sucrose as an everyday sugar beet. This has been an important distinction for the industry as a way to assuage consumer concerns and expand the sugar beet market, which is the source for about half of American sugar.
Produced by Monsanto, GE beets are also called Roundup Ready Beets because their DNA has been altered to survive applications of Roundup weed-killer. The glyphosate based herbicide Roundup is widely used to kill weeds, but is strong enough to kill crops. A genetically engineered beet is resistant to Roundup, allowing farmers to kill the weeds and keep the beets.
But the health risks of glyphosate are poorly understood. Some studies have connected glyphosate exposure to cancer, organ damage in animals, human reproduction and fetal development. Glyphosate has also created super-weeds, resistant to the herbicide much like humans are becoming resistant to some antibiotics.
While the ecological and health issues are debated, the often overlooked factor in the increasing use of GM seed and food is that it gives Monsanto a great deal of control over the production of food. A handful of corporations like Monsanto are involved in agricultural biotechnology. Their products of genetically modified corn, soybeans and sugar beets are then patented much like the work of other inventors in order to limit the way seeds can be used and distributed. Biotech patents have been controversial however because the companies are patenting biology, DNA, the basic structure of life and then claiming it as their invention in order to sell it.
While organizations like the Organic Consumers Organization’s Millions Against Monsanto campaign against biotechnology, Monsanto continues to develop new seed technologies. As it expands the number of patents it has on those technologies it will also expand its power to sue individual producers and control the market. In doing so, Vandana Shiva, a physicist, farmers’ rights activist and author of Monocultures of the Mind argues that farmers and ranchers using GM seeds will continue to find themselves limited by GM seed rather than enabled by it. As she writes, “Corporate strategies and products can lead to diversification of commodities; they cannot enrich nature’s diversity.”
Genetically modified beets have already been grown on 300 acres in Idaho during test trials for Monsanto and another 2,200 acres in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin. While sugar beet farmers await the outcome of these trials and the products full release next year, the sugar industry is keeping a low profile about their use of GM beets in order to reduce the chance of a public outcry according to the New York Times. To further protect its interests, Monsanto recently hired Parven Pomper Schulyer Inc. to lobby the federal government on agriculture, trade and tax issues. With this effort and continued growth in GM foods, Monsanto “expects to double the gross profit potential of business from the end of 2007 through 2012.”
(Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel - New West Network)
For more information on issues related to GMO and US and International food production, visit
http://www.thecampaign.org
and
http://www.organicconsumers.org
