Sugar Wars

It appears California's Judge White, who's overseeing hearings involving the planting of genetically engineered beet crops, has already made up his mind which way the ruling is going to go, and it doesn't look good for conventional beet growers. Being that earlier this month he stated the litigants in the case, organic beet growers and conservation food safety groups, were more than likely to succeed in their complaints against the continued planting of GM sugar beet seed, any arguments brought before Judge White by the USDA will more than likely fall upon deaf ears. Judge White's rejection of arguments from GM sugar beet seed firms over the necessity of the limited planting permits they received from the USDA to do further research and development for possible authorized gm beet planting in the future seems to indicate that the USDA will be unsuccessful in producing a plan which would allow growers to plant Roundup Ready beets next year. If that's the case, U.S. sugar production will be reduced by an alarming twenty to twenty-five percent, a reduction that would undoubtedly result in a severe sugar shortage, the likes of which haven't been seen since World War II rationing.