Understand the Issues

Religious investors belonging to Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) have launched www.DontPlantGMOBeets.org to urge more than 60 leading food, beverage, restaurant and other companies to protect their brand, reputation and consumer confidence by opposing the spring 2008 planting of genetically modified sugar beets. The genetically modified sugar beet crop would be used to make the sugar consumed in thousands of the most widely consumed food products in the U.S.

Sugar beets have been modified to insert a gene that makes the plant resistant to the glyphosate, a toxic herbicide, sold under the trade name Roundup. At the request of Roundup pesticide maker Monsanto, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently increased the allowable amount of glyphosate residues on sugar beet roots by a whopping 5,000 percent. (Sugar is extracted from the beet’s root.) More than 50 percent of Americans have said they would reject genetically modified foods if given a choice. If planted, genetically modified sugar will enter the food supply in early 2009. If the U.S. companies targeted in the new ICCR campaign use genetically modified sugar, their exports to the European Union will require documentation and testing, an additional cost and inconvenience.

ICCR is on record as expressing concerns about genetically modified crops and food because of the weak governmental review and oversight, and lack of independent, long-term and peer-reviewed safety studies.

Don’t forget to Take Action Now to let corporate America know that you don’t want to eat genetically modified sugar!

Here is additional information you may find helpful:

Friends of the Earth: Who Benefits From GM Crops?
Center for Food Safety: Comments for USDA's Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21) Meeting.
Fact Sheet: Health Care Without Harm.
Briefing paper: "Genetically Modified sugar beets: A Bad Bet (At the Worst Time)."
Overview: ICCR’s work on genetically modified food.
Glossary: Key terms related to genetically modified food.