Last week's court ruling ordering destruction of sugar beet seed-producing stecklings is the second prong of an assault against sugar beet farmers, a Heart Mountain sugar beet grower said Monday. Ric Rodriguez, who also is a member of the Western Sugar Cooperative's board of directors, said defendants have appealed the ruling that would destroy stecklings producing seed for the 2012 growing season. It would remove and destroy stecklings planted after the September injunction was issued, he said.

Roundup Ready seed for the 2011 growing season is idle in warehouses as growers wait to see whether they can plant it, Rodriguez said. It doesn't look hopeful, since plaintiffs are likely to file more complaints.

“As soon as they have any kind of ruling, they're just going to sue us again,” Rodriguez said.

That seed would need to be conditioned and prepared for planting before it could be delivered to growers, he said. Although some conventional beet seed is available, nobody really knows how much there is and whether growers could buy enough to plant all the acres, he said.

Rodriguez sees the whole Roundup Ready lawsuit as “a seed issue, not a beet issue.” The filings started with concern over the seed, which was bred to resist applications of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Roundup, the herbicide developed by Monsanto Co.

Rodriguez said later the issue expanded to include commercial sugar beet production, although no genetic differences have been found in sugar from Roundup Ready beets, and the plants do not produce seed.

The comment period on interim regulatory measures that could allow planting of Roundup Ready sugar beets ended Monday, and officials from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have 120 days to read the comments. Several alternatives in this plan would allow growers to plant Roundup Ready beet seed until a full environmental impact statement is completed by the USDA.

“All we can do is sit and wait,” said Rodriguez, although 120 days puts growers right up against spring planting. “Time's the issue. It doesn't look like time's on our side.”

Western Sugar officials urged growers to comment on the proposed regulations, arguing that “activist lawsuits shouldn't be a means for blocking farmer access to safe, new agricultural technologies” and that “consideration of scientific evidence” be required when writing court rulings on biotech crops.

Rodriguez said they also asked agricultural lenders, chambers of commerce and local business operators to comment on the issue.