Dwight: First rule in roadside beet sales, put the most attractive bets on top. The ones that make you pull the car over and go “wow, I need this beet right now”. Those are the money beets.
Posted on 08/17/2010 2:20:27 PM PDT by neverdem
Last week, a federal district court judge in northern California issued an injunction against planting biotech sugar beets next year. Why? He accepted the activist argument that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) must issue a full environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act before permitting the improved sugar beets to be grown. An EIS is required when a federal government agency engages in actions that might be "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment."
So how are biotech sugar beets (already approved by the USDA, mind you) significantly affecting the human environment? Activists at the Center for Food Safety and the Sierra Club argued in federal court that sugar beets improved to resist the herbicide glyphosate might result in the development of superweeds or might interbreed with organic chard and regular beets.
Let’s consider a few background facts. Sugar beets are the source of half the sugar produced in the U.S. Biotech sugar beets were approved as safe for growing by the USDA five years ago. The frankenbeets at issue in this case are now so popular with farmers that they constitute 95 percent of the current crop. In fact, there may not be enough conventional seeds to replace biotech seeds for next year’s planting.
Meanwhile, weeds treated with any herbicide tend to become resistant to those that are applied to them, this is not something peculiar to biotech plants. And most sugar beets are grown nowhere near organic chard or red beets and so will have no chance to interbreed with them. (Even if they did, sugar beets are typically harvested before they flower and so don’t get a chance to produce pollen in the first place.)...
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
I like beets
Oh never mind, we don't care what that ancient document states anymore.
What we have here is a case of unscientific superstition taking command of our food supply. Next up will be burning witches.
Nancy Pelosi made my cow give sour milk. And she made be babble gibberish and destroy my TV.
/johnny
BEETS, BEARS, and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA !
There are ways of telling whether
she is a witch.
CROWD: Are there? What are they?
BEDEMIR: Tell me, what do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2: Burn!
CROWD: Burn, burn them up!
BEDEMIR: And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1: More witches!
VILLAGER #2: Wood!
BEDEMIR: So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3: B—... ‘cause they’re made of wood...?
BEDEMIR: Good!
CROWD: Oh yeah, yeah...
BEDEMIR: So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1: Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEMIR: Aah, but can you not also build bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #2: Oh, yeah.
BEDEMIR: Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1: No, no.
VILLAGER #2: It floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1: Throw her into the pond!
CROWD: The pond!
BEDEMIR: What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1: Bread!
VILLAGER #2: Apples!
VILLAGER #3: Very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1: Cider!
VILLAGER #2: Great gravy!
VILLAGER #1: Cherries!
VILLAGER #2: Mud!
VILLAGER #3: Churches — churches!
VILLAGER #2: Lead — lead!
ARTHUR: A duck.
CROWD: Oooh.
BEDEMIR: Exactly! So, logically...,
VILLAGER #1: If... she.. weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood.
BEDEMIR: And therefore—?
VILLAGER #1: A witch!
CROWD: A witch!
...
BEDEMIR: Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
Dwight: First rule in roadside beet sales, put the most attractive bets on top. The ones that make you pull the car over and go “wow, I need this beet right now”. Those are the money beets.
bump
This is true only if the herbicides are used other than specified on the label, or a particular herbicide (glyphosate in this instance) is used exclusively.
That cat is already out of the bag. There are people at Monsanto who belong in jail for slowly deactivating the best herbicide in 100 years, just because the patent had expired. In my opinion, Monsanto wants to sell one hell of a lot of RoundUp until it is no longer effective, then to sell its newly patented and far more expensive alternatives.
Meanwhile, weeds treated with any herbicide tend to become resistant to those that are applied to them, this is not something peculiar to biotech plants.
The two mechanisms are vastly different and represent a massive corresponding difference in the degree of that resistance.
And most sugar beets are grown nowhere near organic chard or red beets and so will have no chance to interbreed with them.
This may be true, at first. But those weeds in the vicinity that DO acquire glyphosate resistance will be fully capable of conducting that gene for vast distances. Those who doubt me there should look at what glyphosate resistant pigweed is doing to RoundUp Ready corn and soybeans.
Finally, to argue that the Sierra Club is acting on the behalf of big seed producers when it is Monsanto producing RoundUp Ready seed is one ballsy red herring. This looks more like a battle between giant seed companies with their respective surrogates posturing in court and in the media.
I have to leave for the day, so to those who respond, I'm not ignoring you.
Why not just plant the beets anyway? What are they going to do, send out a shovel brigade to dig them up and test them? Or to make things more difficult, mix in some of the genetically engineered beets with “normal” ones.
I think it is wise to point out to everybody that it might be very wise to lay up a store of sugar now. Note: this article was *before* the judge’s decision.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE57C0Q220090813
“Large U.S. food companies have been pushing the Obama administration to ease sugar import curbs, citing forecasts for unprecedented sugar shortages that could result in higher retail prices and possible job losses.”
“In a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack dated August 5, companies and groups that include Kraft Foods Inc, General Mills Inc and Hershey Co warn that “our nation will virtually run out of sugar,” if a USDA forecast is accurate.”
*
Because of the decision of this federal judge, the study he demands may put a halt to 95% of all US sugar production, for TWO YEARS, right when US inventories are bottoming out.
And add to that, the US congress, in a fit of insanity, still mandates that a huge amount of US corn production (and thus corn sugar), is to be used to produce *ethanol* for automobile fuel. This is already driving up animal feed prices and grain prices.
So processed food companies use a vast amount of sugar for their products, there is almost certainly going to be an extended shortage of sugar on store shelves. And what little there is, is going to be very expensive.
Looks like the food police are going to be successful at driving the cost of sugar as high as possible.
As someone who cannot eat the “diet” chemical concoctions I use the real thing. NYS was going to tax the crap out of sugar but I think that is on the back burner right now.
It's not a red herring, merely the usual result of big-business-hating liberals. Their policies tend to make doing business so expensive that only very-big-business can afford them. Monsanto will have the wherewithal to wait out the interminable environmental impact statement and adjust its business model to the results.
What remaining small seed companies there are will be weakened and perhaps even go out of business.
To pretend one is writing upon behalf of numerous small players without mentioning that Monsanto (the biggest player in the market) is the holder of the patents on glyphosate-tolerant seeds IS a red herring. Big businesses are usually the instigators of regulatory action via donations to green activists from the major stockholders' tax-exempt "charitable" foundations.
I'd suggest you get outside the usual "us versus them" game and learn more about how regulatory government really works. Start here. Oh, and here are the reviews to my first book on the topic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.