Sugar Beet Growers

 At least it’s a step in the right direction. After months of legal battles involving organic sugar beet growers and genetically modified sugar beet growers, GM growers have been given the go ahead to plant biotech sugar beet seed. The difference this planting season over past planting seasons though lies in how GM sugar beet growers plant their crop. Before they even started putting seed in the ground they were required to complete an online training session to help them meet the new government requirements that have come about through the litigation process. During planting growers are now required to have precautionary measures in place that assure no GM seed is spilled as they move from field to field. Also, they’ll need to monitor the crop during growing season for possible bolter seed and finally, carefully avoid spillage of any beets during harvest. All in all, most growers feel these new requirements are worth the trouble, if it means being able to grow superior sugar beet varieties. Will this stop the lawsuits? Sadly, probably not, but just maybe it will restrict litigations to those which involve any actual harm done.