Counting weather, market fluctuations and evolving government policies, most farmers have plenty to worry about as another planting season approaches. But if you’re a sugar beet grower, now you’ve got one of the largest and highest profile environmental groups harassing your industry with what’s tempting to dismiss as merely a “nuisance suit.”
Such a description might be accurate, but the impact of a federal lawsuit currently under consideration in the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco is problematic when such litigation-savvy groups as the Sierra Club and the Center for Food Safety are among the plaintiffs. (The organic seed marketer High Mowing Seeds is also a litigant).
Here’s the background:
Although high prices for domestic sugar are often criticized by food and confectionary companies as a rationale for relocation of manufacturing operations, the truth is that the United States is the world’s No. 2 sugar importer, behind only Russia, according to USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
Enough sugar could be produced domestically to meet American food-industry needs, according to a policy analysis done by the American Sugar Alliance. But because of trade agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA, a significant portion of the U.S. sugar market is composed of imports from foreign countries that heavily subsidize their producers – some 1.65 million short tons of sugar a year from 41 countries.
Despite that unfavorable scenario for U.S. sugar beet growers – and against the backdrop of escalating commodity prices for wheat, corn and soybeans (sugar beets typically require a four-year rotation) – the lawsuit seeks to derail the use of a genetically engineered crop judged to be safe and proven to increase on-farm efficiency, based on alleged failure by USDA to properly evaluate the safety risks of the genetically engineered sugar beet seeds.
But Luther Markwart, executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Sugarbeet Growers Association, declared that the court case will not deter growers from planting Roundup Ready seedstock this season. “We are going ahead with planting as planned,” he said.
To elaborate on that assertion, Markwart spoke with AgNetwork.com Contributing Editor Dan Murphy about the impact of the lawsuit, the “state of the industry” for sugar beet growers and the longer term challenges facing this important agricultural segment.
AgNetwork.com: First, let’s start with this lawsuit. Roundup Ready seedstock is hardly a controversial product these days. Why now? Why are these environmental groups picking on sugar beet growers over what most farmers consider a non-issue?
Markwart: It’s a tactical move to try to instill fear among consumers about another “threat” with genetically engineered crops. That’s what these groups do. Sugar beets have been grown commercially for more than 100 years. We’re not some “new” crop. But that doesn’t matter to these folks. They’ll try to stop any use of any GM crops, wherever they can.
This suit was timed to try to disrupt the growing season, but the fact is that our members are going ahead with their planting. It’s too late to change their plans now, and we’re confident that this season’s crop will go into the ground as planned.
AgNetwork.com: It seems odd, to say the least, that Sierra Club, as experienced as they are with using the courts to advance their agenda, would pick on Roundup Ready sugar beets. That doesn’t make sense. Where’s the threat?
Markwart: Well, they had some success legally with constraining the use of Roundup Ready alfalfa. [Editor’s note: A lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California resulted in Judge Charles Breyer ruling that USDA should have completed an Environmental Impact Statement before approving Roundup Ready alfalfa. He ordered a halt to further sales of the seeds until the EIS is completed].
Of course, sugar beets are totally different story. There are no organic sugar beets that could conceivably become “contaminated” by GMO crops, and seed production in our industry is separate from commercial beet production. And with sugar beets, the crop is processed to remove virtually all of the protein and DNA, leaving only the extracted sugar, which is then used in food production. There’s just no danger, to the environment, or to consumers.
AgNetwork.com: What is your association’s role with regard to this case?
Markwart: I can’t really comment on active litigation, other than to say that we are going to be working behind the scenes with all of our resources to make sure that USDA is able to defend its decision to approve Roundup Ready sugar beets.
AgNetwork.com: In fact, Roundup Ready sugar beets are already approved in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, correct?
Markwart: Not exactly. However, the sale of sugar and sugar products derived from Roundup Ready seeds are approved for sale in the European Union, Japan, Australia and other countries, although there are labeling requirements in the EU to state that the sugar was derived from genetically modified seeds. But in that sense, yes, our products are sold worldwide.
AgNetwork.com: Let’s talk for a moment about the industry, aside from any impact this lawsuit might have on growers’ plans. How would you characterize the health of the U.S. sugar beet industry, given the media criticism, the controversy over price supports in the farm bill and the widespread nutritional condemnation of sugar as a food ingredient?
Markwart: We like to point out to critics that U.S. growers are able to produce sugar at lower net cost than more than half of the world’s sugar-producing countries. If we were allowed to do so, we could out-produce much of the rest of the world. So, competitiveness of U.S. sugar beets farmers isn’t the issue.
But many other countries protect their domestic growers with heavy subsidies, and we’re forced to import sugar at below cost-of-production prices, due to the various trade agreements in place. It’s like selling Christmas ornaments on January 2nd. You’ve already made your money, and what you dump in the market ends up moving at bargain basement prices. That’s what’s affecting the prices of sugar in the U.S. market, not any alleged inefficiency on the part of our association’s farmer-members.
AgNetwork.com: But haven’t several high-profile candy companies, including Brach’s in Chicago and Lifesavers in Michigan, closed up shop and moved out of the country? At the time they said it was due to the impact of high U.S. sugar prices. Not true?
Markwart: Not at all. Look, whenever a manufacturing plant closes in this country, jobs are going to be lost and the local economy takes a hit. In those cases, there has to be someone to blame, somebody to be a convenient scapegoat. It’s easy to blame high sugar prices, but in Brach’s case, for example, the prevailing price of sugar in Mexico is actually higher than here. They didn’t move because of the price of sugar; they moved because of everything else: labor costs, transportation, etc.
AgNetwork.com: So overall, you’re confident that the sugar beet industry is healthy. Any clouds on the horizon from where you sit?
Markwart: As you might know, virtually all sugar beet manufacturing plants are owned by the growers. So growers not only have the right to sell their crop to the co-op, they have an obligation, and if they don’t deliver the acreage promised when they bought their shares, there are penalties to pay.
Of course, the way that commodity prices are spiking right now, it’s tempting to switch to corn or wheat. We have a lot of growers worried about whether they should plant sugar beets, or something else where they think they can make more money. My message to them is that, first of all, that’s a good problem to have.
Secondly, sugar beets have historically been the better crop for many farmers. We know these commodity prices aren’t guaranteed to last, and so we’re confident that most of our growers will continue to plant the acreage needed to continue to make our crop an important – and profitable – one for the thousands of family farmers we represent. ■
» To learn more about the American Sugarbeet Growers Association, log onto www.americansugarbeet.org.
Dan Murphy is a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator whose latest book is “The Meat of the Matter” (www.themeatofthematter.com)