Sugar beets spur county to reconsider biotech food
source: http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/gen/ap/US_Farm_Scene_Beet_Fight.html
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- ajrmy
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Famuer Rasmussen Jr. and five other farmers filed what they thought was a routine request to grow genetically modified sugar beets on public land in Colorado's Boulder County. The county already had allowed genetically altered corn.
But the farmers got an earful.
Complaints from residents and organic food activists concerned about the crops' safety and local businesses hoping to maintain Boulder as a center for natural and organic products prompted county commissioners to reassess their genetically modified crops policy.
...The protests are part of the growing battles over genetically modified organisms, or GMO. At issue in Boulder County is Monsanto Corp.'s Roundup Ready sugar beets, which Rasmussen wants to grow on land leased from the county.
About 95 percent of the 1.15 million acres of sugar beets planted nationwide have been bred to resist the weed killer Roundup, also made by Monsanto, according to the American Sugarbeet Growers Association. The beets were widely commercially used for the first time last year.
But the farmers got an earful.
Complaints from residents and organic food activists concerned about the crops' safety and local businesses hoping to maintain Boulder as a center for natural and organic products prompted county commissioners to reassess their genetically modified crops policy.
...The protests are part of the growing battles over genetically modified organisms, or GMO. At issue in Boulder County is Monsanto Corp.'s Roundup Ready sugar beets, which Rasmussen wants to grow on land leased from the county.
About 95 percent of the 1.15 million acres of sugar beets planted nationwide have been bred to resist the weed killer Roundup, also made by Monsanto, according to the American Sugarbeet Growers Association. The beets were widely commercially used for the first time last year.
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- groups:
- Sustainable Agriculture, FOODIES: UNITE, Unfeatured, Organic
