The sugar beet harvest is starting in the Red River Valley. It's the first
harvest of genetically modified sugar beets. GMO crops often generated
controversy over the past couple of decades. Some farmers refused to grow
them and some consumers fought to keep them out of the food supply. Most
farmers are apparently happy with the Roundup Ready beets, but there are
some lingering concerns.
American Crystal Sugar company director of agriculture Dan Bernhardson
guides his SUV down a narrow gravel road, into a muddy sugar beet field east
of Moorhead.

Kirk Watt is starting to prepare this field for harvest. He didn't plant the
genetically modified Roundup Ready beets this year, but wishes he had.

"We had non-Roundup here and the guy over there has Roundup and I tell you,
his look better," says Watt ruefully. "It's not so much now, but boy, in
June it was just night and day difference."

This field has large areas where a thick crop of pigweed dwarfs the sugar
beets. The weeds are more than a nuisance, they lower crop yield and cost
the farmer thousands of dollars.

"I'm sure those spots that are thick with pigweed you'll probably have two,
three, four ton less per acre," says Watt.


It's hard to control weeds in sugar beets. Traditionally, the chemicals that
kill weeds would also kill the beets.

So farmers applied carefully timed, very low doses of herbicide several
times a year to control the weeds without killing the beets. They used
migrant farm labor to remove the weeds that escaped the herbicide.

This year, rain kept Kirk Watt out of the field when the weeds were small.
By the time he could spray, the weeds were too big to be killed by the low
dose of herbicide, and it was too costly to hire laborers to hoe the weeds.
So the weeds rise about the beets in thick clumps.

But in his neighbors field of Roundup Ready beets, there's not a weed to be
seen. That's because the beets are genetically modified to be immune to the
broad spectrum weed killer Roundup. So farmers can easily kill weeds any
time without worrying about damaging the beet plants.

American Crystal Sugar Director of Agriculture Dan Bernhardson, says just
over half of the sugar beets planted this year were the Roundup Ready
variety created by Monsanto. He says farmers who planted the modified sugar
beets have a clear advantage in weed control.

"The other advantage we see is less cultivation of the field, less passes
across the field. Also, the number of times you have to spray. Most
conventional varieties have four applications of spray where roundup
varieties we expect two applications. So, less trips across the field, less
diesel fuel being burned," says Bernhardson.



So the farmer saves money on labor and fuel. But that doesn't mean the GMO
beets are cheaper to grow.

Monsanto charges a technology fee for the seeds, about $60 per acre, which
offsets much of the savings. Tests this year show the GMO beets overall
don't produce higher yields than traditional varieties. That's expected to
change as the GMO seed is improved over the next couple of years. Kirk Watt
has weighed all the costs and variables and says he's almost certain to
plant all GMO beets next year. "One of the variables is increased yield.
They say it might be a two-ton increased yield. If that's that case it will
definitely make it more profitable," says Watt. "Hopefully the tech fee
doesn't keep increasing every year. Because once we have Roundup, that's all
we have. We might be limited to that seed. That part concerns me a little
bit."

Next year American Crystal expects about 90 percent of sugar beets to be the
Roundup Ready variety.

That means seed companies will quickly stop producing traditional seed
varieties. So within two or three years, Roundup Ready will be the only
choice.

Red River Valley Sugar Beet Growers Association Executive Director Nick
Sinner, says people are concerned about that because farmers don't want
Monsanto, the creator of the Roundup brand, holding all the cards when it
comes to buying seed. "We want to have a good working relationship with
Monsanto because they hold the rights to that technology," says Sinner. "We
also think competition is a great thing, so if there are other technologies
that come along that will work for weed control and keeps everybody honest
in the long run, that can be a good thing."

Farmers are also concerned about a pending lawsuit challenging the
government's decision to allow the use of GMO sugar beets.



It's unclear how that case could affect next year's planting, since the seed
for next year has already been produced.

But despite lingering questions, it appears the benefits of the
herbicide-resistant sugar beet plants have farmers ready to embrace the
change.

www.checkbiotech.org