“The Department of Agriculture said on Friday that American farmers could resume growing genetically engineered sugar beets that had been barred by a federal judge.” The ban had led to fears of sugar shortages and steep price hikes. [New York Times, earlier]
5 Comments
This is yet another example of a liberal, unelected federal judge, with no education or experience in the hard sciences, making a decision with serious real-world cosequences that should be left to Congress.
Mike, I haven read the article, but reading between ethe lines of your comment, you seem to think that the lawyers who overwhelmingly fill the ranks of congress posses critical scientific skills and, more to the point, aren’t unfixed by monied interests to pervert them? I’ll take my chances with an unelected judge who may not have a scientific background either, but who is appointed due to at least credible judicial and educational experience, and, who, crucially, has the time to look at the cases before him in detail.
My sugar beet growing friends around here breathed a sigh of relief.
The non-roundup ready sugar beets require a lot of manual labor to keep the weeds under control. The workers who used to do that have long moved to other areas of the country. The farmers had no idea where they were going to find enough workers (or the money to pay them) next summer.
Don, its not clear what the point of your anecdote is. Of course there are winners and losers in every decision, and in this case the winners are the farmers who are able to continue to profit despite real environmental concerns. The real question, Don, is whether you just happen to have friends in the beet industry and are genuinely happy for their win, or, are you yet another Monsanto employee trying to spread a bit of PR around as is not unheard of in such threads? Honestly, I don’t know which.. For all I know there may be a bunch of Dwight schrute friends about..
Mike, no need to read between your lines. It is obvious that you are against the planting of the bio-tech beets.
Since it is the USDA’s responsibility to regulate the use of these crops, don’t you think that it should be up to them and not a small special interest group as to whether or not they should be allowed?
If you do read the article you will see that it is an organic growers group that is pushing for this. They make up 10% of the growers. Hmmm, I wonder how much money they stand to make if the other 90% are put out of business?