The USDA expects a record sugarbeet crop in 2016, but as more food companies opt out of GMO ingredients, demand is starting to soften.
The agency said sugarbeet deliveries for this fiscal year are lagging, while cane sugar deliveries continue to exceed the five-year average.
Luther Markwart with the American Sugarbeet Growers Association says there are 25 environmental benefits from growing biotech sugarbeets which include fewer and safer herbicides, improved soil and water quality and conservation, and increased plant health.
“Literally all of the sugarbeets are GMO, we’ve done that because there’s absolutely no difference in the sugar. Once we produce the sugarbeets and remove the sugar, all the protein and DNA are gone, so there’s no difference between beet or cane sugar or sugar from a biotech beet or a conventional beet.”
Markwart says the sugarbeet industry hopes to see some kind of resolution on GMO labeling before Vermont’s law goes into effect in July.
USDA projects growers will harvest more than 5 million tons of sugar from beets this year on about 200 fewer acres than last year.
Source: www.brownfieldagnews.com