Roundup Ready sugar beets have been back in the news due to the decision by Judge White to revoke approval. As I understand it, the USDA conduced an Environmental Assessment for Roundup Ready sugar beets but did not conduct an Environmental Impact Statement. According to regulation, an EA is sufficient if potential harm is found to be minimal, but an EIS is needed for anything that is less well understood, such as a new trait (and this is hardly a new trait). After reading the EA, I agree with the USDA that the potential environmental harm is minimal, and I think the potential economic harm is minimal as well, due to some very specific characteristics of beet biology, which I’ll explain in this post, followed by a discussion of mitigation strategies that might be used to control gene flow in beets (sorry, folks, this is going to be another long one).

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