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By Landvista, October 19, 2010 12:52 pm

THE EFFECTS [OF A BAN ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEED] FOR US ARE JUST HUGE.
-Beet farmer Mark Nyquist

MOORHEAD, MINN. – This time of year, Mark Nyquist’s sugar beet fields are buzzing with harvesting machinery 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The veteran farmer gets about 21 2 hours of sleep each night until the harvest – performed with military precision – is done.

But he’s not complaining. This year’s sugar beet crop is a blockbuster, the best in recent memory, so good that American “Crystal Sugar’s sizable network of sugar refineries almost didn’t have enough capacity to process the entire harvest. The bumper beet crop is representative of good times for Minnesota crop farmers of all sorts, beneficiaries of early planting and great weather.

But sugar beet farmers are already worrying mightily over next year’s crop. In August, a federal judge barred the planting of genetically modified beet seed – the industry’s standard – until the U.S. Department of Agriculture does a full-scale review of the seeds’ environmental effects. That review won’t be done until 2012.

The USDA is scrambling to find an interim solution before next’s spring’s planting, but it’s far from certain the agency will succeed, leaving farmers in the lurch. Supplies of conventional beet seeds – and the herbicides used with them – are tight. And even if beet growers can get the conventional seed and weed killers they need, they say they stand to lose money. Beet growers have flocked to genetically modified seed over the past three years at an unprecedented pace because of its superior weed-fighting abilities, which improves the economics of their business. “The effects for us are just huge,” Nyquist said of the ban on genetically engineered seeds. Even if the can procure conventional seed for next spring, Nyquist said, the 20ll crop “could be a big loser.” A lumpy, dingy-looking tuber, the sugar beet is the Rodney Dangerfield of vegetables. But the United States gets the bulk of its sugar from beets, not sugar cane. And no state produces more sugar beets than Minnesota, according to federal and state agriculture data.

• MORE ON SEED TYPES:  Crystal Beet Seed Variety Details
• MORE ON SEED PRODUCTION: Producing Sugar Beet Seed

The Red River Valley is ground zero for the sugar beet business. It’s home to Moorhead-based , the nation’s largest sugar beet processor, a cooperative with 3,000 shareholders, including Nyquist, representing 850 farms. The harvest kicks into high gear on Oct. 1 and lasts for roughly three weeks, a period when the fields are crawling with roto-beaters – they lop off the beet’s leafy top – and the roads are rife with beet-swollen trucks making incessant runs to American Crystal Sugar’s five refineries. Nyquist, 46, farms more than 1,200 acres of sugar beets and just north of 2,000 acres of soybeans. He was harvesting both last week, a task that at its peak required hiring more than 30 temporary workers, including retired judges and doctors; He works every day from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m., running the machine that plucks the beets from the dirt. “Everybody has the adrenaline going,” Nyquist said. “I’ve got it all on the line right now.” U.S. sugar beet farmers are looking at a crop that’s 12 percent bigger than last year’s, the USDA says. Record high yields per acre are also expected, including in Minnesota and North Dakota. The sugar content of the Red River Valley’s beets is expected to be high: over 18 percent by weight, compared with 16.7 percent last year, said David Berg, American Crystal Sugar’s chief executive. The higher the sugar content, the more sugar produced.

Long growing season

Like corn and soybean farmers, sugar beet growers got an early start due to the mild spring. Beets were planted in mid-April when a mid-May start is the norm. Then farmers had a warm, sunny summer. “Things have gone well in so many ways,” Berg said But trouble is already here concerning next year’s crop. In August, Judge Jeffrey White of U.S. District Court in San Francisco rescinded the USDXs approval of genetically engineered sugar beet seeds, concluding that the agency had not sufficiently investigated whether such seeds could harm the environment. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit against the USDA by activist groups, including the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice. They claim that genetically modified sugar beet seeds could lead to the evolution of herbicide resistant weeds – superweeds, so to speak – and cause contamination of conventional and organic crops through inadvertent cross-pollination Genetically modified beet seeds are bred to be resistant to Monsanto Co.’s Roundup herbicide. The chemical efficiently kills weeds, but leaves the beet alone. st. Louis-based Monsanto and a German seed company license the Roundup technology to sugar beet seed producers. Roundup Ready sugar beets have been wildly popular. From 2007 through 2010, the use of genetically engineered seeds has grown from a base of almost nothing to about 95 percent of all sugar beet growers. That’s a considerably faster adoption rate than Roundup-resistant seeds experienced among corn and soybean farmers. From a genetic point of view, there’s no evidence that Roundup Ready sugar beets lead to higher yields than conventional beets, said Larry Smith, a sugar beet specialist at the University of Minnesota’s Northwest Research and Outreach Center in Crookston But genetically modified seed is superior from a weedcontrol perspective, which in itself can boost yields, he said. , Roundup Ready beets allow a farmer to make fewer trips into the field for herbicide application, which cuts down on costs. Roundup is a more benign chemical, too; some conventional herbicides can burn beet leaves when the weather is hot, which hurts sugar production inside the vegetable, sugar beet experts say. And conventional herbicides require more mechanical weed picking – in other words, more work and more of a farmer’s time. “It’s the ease of use of Roundup Ready,” Smith said.

Legal maneuvers

Judge White’s ruling put genetically engineered beet seeds back into “regulated” status, something that can’t totally be removed until the USDA completes an Environmental Impact Statement, a two-year process. In the meantime, the agency is trying to food a mechanism that would allow Roundup Ready planting next spring under conditions that would minimize any risks. But any such interim remedy would likely be challenged again by environmental activist groups, potentially tying the issue up in court until next planting season. Farmers need to start lining up seed and herbicide before then. ”My biggest problem if I am a farmer is the uncertainty,” said Mohamed Khan, a professor and sugar beet expert at North Dakota State University. If farmers wait too long for the USDA to come through, they might have no crop next year. But opting for conventional seed and herbicide has its pitfalls. There’s been very little conventional seed produced since 2008, so it may be in short supply. And what’s in stock is old, and therefore hasn’t benefited from annual advances in seed science, Khan said Growers face the same problem with conventional herbicide: It’s been largely out of production the past year. And chemical makers don’t have an incentive to suddenly ramp up production, given the uncertainty of next year’s planting, Khan said. After all, if the USDA is successful in a timely fashion – and genetically modified seeds can be planted next spring – then the market for conventional herbicide could evaporate. Berg, American Crystal Sugar’s CEO, said the co-op is working now to line up conventional herbicide for next year. And he believes his growers will have enough conventional seed “But I can only speak for Crystal Sugar,” he added. “It could be a difficult, challenging year, but we will be here growing and processing beets.”