12 CapitalPress.com
December 25, 2015
Amalgamated produces 20 percent of the nation’s beet sugar
SUGAR from Page 1
chairman of Snake River Sug-
ar Cooperative, which con-
trols Idaho-based Amalgam-
ated Sugar. “I think it would
be wrong to characterize Her-
shey’s decision as well-rea-
soned.”
Cerminara said his compa-
ny now offers chocolate kiss-
es and candy bars made with
non-GMO cane sugar in the
U.S., as well as a small selec-
tion of organic, artisan choco-
late products.
But Cerminara empha-
sized his company’s products
have always been safe and
high-quality, even when they
were made with sugar from
GMO beets.
“The international scien-
tific community, including
the U.S. American Medical
Association, the World Health
Organization, Health Can-
ada, the National Academy
of Science and the Food and
Agricultural Organization of
the United Nations have all
examined the health and envi-
ronmental safety of plant bio-
technology,” Cerminara said.
“These organizations have
concluded that these technol-
ogies are safe for human con-
sumption.”
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Sugar beets are scooped at a beet piling area in Rupert, Idaho.
The future of sugar
In 2003, when his compa-
ny was first investigating the
potential benefits of biotech-
nology, Grant was accepted
for an Eisenhower Fellow-
ship, a program honoring for-
mer President Dwight Eisen-
hower by promoting global
dialogue.
For his project, Grant
headed to Europe to inves-
tigate why residents of the
continent held such negative
attitudes about biotechnology.
Grant concluded Europe
had “an authority vacuum” in
food regulation, and the pub-
lic was more apt to trust activ-
ists who sought to “stir things
up” than regulators.
By contrast, the U.S. beet
sugar industry rapidly adopt-
ed GMO technology, which
offered improved weed con-
trol with less labor and the use
of fewer chemicals.
“We really needed some
new tools to control weeds
in beets,” Grant said. “Other-
wise, I was going to get out of
the business because what we
had at the time was complete-
ly ineffective.”
Amalgamated processes
sugar from 183,000 acres of
beets in Idaho, Oregon and
Washington, producing 20
percent of the nation’s beet
sugar and 12 percent of the
total U.S. domestic sugar sup-
ply.
In 2006, Amalgamated
planted test plots of GMO
sugar beets. The following
season, the company made
its first commercial planting,
Courtesy of The Hershey Co.
Hershey’s chocolate kisses are manufactured. The company re-
cently moved away from using sugar produced with biotechnology.
under a government permit.
Now, all of Amalgamated’s
sugar beet acres are GMO.
Grant said his company
sources cane sugar from the
global market to meet the
needs of customers requiring
non-GMO certified sugar. But
he’s confident most U.S. con-
sumers believe in the safety of
GMO technology, and vows
Amalgamated will never re-
turn to conventional sugar
beet production.
“This company will go out
of business before they go
back to conventional,” Grant
said.
Minnesota-based Ameri-
can Crystal Sugar — which
raises 400,000 acres of sugar
beets and produces 11 million
tons of refined sugar per year
— won’t raise any sugar for
the conventional market in the
next year or two, CEO David
Berg said.
Berg said a single grower
within the company some-
times still plants convention-
al beet seed because he’s had
“competitive results,” but his
beets are mixed in with the
piles of GMO beets. Though
Berg believes GMO beets are
proven safe and the opposi-
tion is emotionally driven, he
won’t rule out the possibility
of producing some non-GMO
sugar a few years from now.
He said his staff is spending
more time on analyzing the
non-GMO market than a cou-
ple of years ago, but convert-
ing acres back to conventional
production remains a remote
possibility.
“It’s something we have to
assess,” Berg said. “The mar-
ket will dictate what we do.”
GMO-free,
organic sugar
Jack Roney, an economist
with the American Sugar Al-
liance, estimates less than
2 percent of the U.S. sugar
supply is organic.
The country’s total or-
ganic sugar consumption is
roughly 140,000 tons per
year, the bulk of which is im-
ported cane sugar. A single
company, Florida Crystals,
accounts for all of the domes-
tic organic sugar production,
raising 9,000 tons per year of
organic cane, Roney said.
Florida Crystals officials
could not be reached for
comment, but their website
advertises that they remain
“America’s first and only
producer of certified organic
sugars,” and that their prod-
ucts are “not just sweet, but
they’re also sweet to the en-
vironment.”
Roney said Florida Crys-
tals hasn’t increased its acre-
age — despite a hefty organic
premium and a strong organ-
ic sugar growth trend — be-
cause of high production
costs.
“I’m not hearing about
any big efforts by American
producers to go into organ-
ic,” Roney said. “In devel-
oping countries, it’s kind of
easier to do organic because
they can’t afford herbicides
or pesticides.”
There’s no GMO sugar
cane on the market, though
cane faces strong disease
pressure, adding to the chal-
lenge of raising it organical-
ly.
According to the Organic
Trade Association’s 2015 Or-
ganic Industry Survey, organ-
ic sweetener sales reached
$200 million in 2014, and an-
nual growth has been steady
at 15 percent. OTA spokes-
woman Maggie McNeil said
beets haven’t been certified
as organic, partly due to a
“chemically intensive” refin-
ing process.
She said that as refined
sugar has come under in-
creasing scrutiny there’s been
growth in organic sweetener
options such as honey and
agave.
The major sweetener veri-
fied by the Non-GMO Project
is cane sugar, said Executive
Director Megan Westgate.
“We do not yet have a beet
sugar that is Non-GMO Proj-
ect verified,” Westgate said.
In the past year, she said
the non-GMO category of
candy, chocolate, desserts
and sweeteners has increased
from 153 brands and 780
project-verified products to
238 brands and 1,402 prod-
ucts in 2015. The snack foods
and bars category, which also
requires a variety of sweeten-
ers, grew from 2,080 products
to 3,103 products during the
same period, she said.
“Consumer demand for
transparency is at an all-time
high and shows no sign of
diminishing,” Westgate said.
“With this shift in demand to
non-GMO sweeteners, it will
become increasingly more
important for supply to meet
demand.”
Thom King, founder and
CEO of Portland-based Ste-
viva Ingredients, believes his
company’s specialization in
natural, low-calorie sweeten-
ers makes it ideally suited for
the future.
“We experience triple-digit
growth year over year,” King
said.
His company fills 60 per-
cent of the U.S. market for
stevia, a sweetener considered
safe for people with diabetes
derived from a plant native
to South America. Coca-Co-
la now makes a low-calorie
soda with a blend of cane
sugar and stevia, he said. He
also produces sweetener from
an Asian melon called monk
fruit.
King believes his products
provide a more healthful alter-
native to sugar, but he sees no
benefit to choosing GMO-free
cane sugar over beet sugar.
“If you’re using GMO to
increase crop yield to feed the
world and the net effect is fin-
ished goods that have no trace
of GMO, I’m not sure anyone
could support that being a bad
idea,” King said.
Environmental
claims
In the case of sugar, Grant
argues consumers who seek
organic and GMO-free prod-
ucts are doing the environ-
ment a disservice.
On behalf of Amalgam-
ated, Grant signed a report
compiled by the American
Sugarbeet Growers Associa-
tion documenting 25 reasons
GMO sugar beets are ecologi-
cally superior to conventional
beets — including that they
require fewer and safer herbi-
cides and less fuel to grow.
The report was offered as
public comment to the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences,
which will soon take a posi-
tion on GMO crops.
Grant further reasons that
consumers can fight global
warming by avoiding organic
sugar. Grant said most organ-
ic sugar consumed in the U.S.
comes from cane-producing
countries where rain forests
are often cleared for crop
land.
“Does it make sense to
slash and burn the rain for-
ests in Brazil to bring organic
sugar here and put American
beet farmers out of business,
in spite of the fact that they’re
producing in an environmen-
tally sustainable manner?”
Grant asked.
He also believes there’s
too little accountability to be
confident foreign suppliers in
“markets where you can buy
a paper trail” are meeting U.S.
organic standards.
A few years ago, the ma-
jor beet companies conduct-
ed a demonstration, testing
finished GMO beet sugar
from several plants against
cane sugar to prove there’s no
chemical difference. The sam-
ples were indistinguishable
on the molecular level. Grant
said only at the atomic level
can the products be differen-
tiated — by a single carbon
isotope distinguishing a grass,
sugar cane, from a root, sugar
beet.
Grant said current sugar
prices are “reasonably prof-
itable,” and in the long term,
he sees the market share only
growing for GMO beet sugar.
Beet growers, who used
to produce less sugar per acre
than cane farmers, have seen
their trend-line yield gains
double since the advent of
GMO sugar, while cane yields
have been declining.
“You take that out 10 years
and beet sugar in the U.S.
will be by dramatic margins
the most cost-effective sug-
ar produced anywhere in the
world,” Grant said.
Despite the growing niche
for organic and GMO-free
sugar, Grant said Amalgam-
ated has a market for all of
the sugar it can produce and
has invested $155 million
in the past four years to re-
move production bottlenecks
and boost its output. With
sugar prices up, he antici-
pates the sugar beet indus-
try’s next step will be to build
new processing capacity.
“We believe in the end sci-
ence will prevail,” Grant said.
“We are just on the edge of
what this technology can real-
ly bring.”
Extreme drought conditions are almost gone in Idaho, snowpack levels way above normal
DROUGHT from Page 1
The snowpack can use all
the help it can get consider-
ing that much of the winter
is expected to be dominated
by El Nino, whose southern
storms usually bring high-
er-than-normal temperatures
and snow levels.
The federal Climate Pre-
diction Center envisions
cooler-than-normal tempera-
tures and below-average pre-
cipitation throughout much
of the West over the next two
weeks, with El Nino’s high
rainfall amounts in the south-
ern United States taking hold
in early 2016.
Whatever happens be-
tween now and New Year’s
Day, snow levels are sure to
be better than they were on
Dec. 30, 2014, when the De-
partment of Water Resourc-
es’ first manual snow survey
near Echo Summit found a
snow-water equivalent of 4
inches, or 33 percent of av-
erage.
In Oregon, the percent-
age of the state in extreme
drought dropped to 46 per-
cent from 59 percent. The
percentage of the state in
some level of drought de-
clined to 88 percent from 90
percent.
There is significant snow
in the Cascades, the Blue
Mountains, the Wallowas and
the Siskiyou.
In contrast to last year,
2015 is ending with healthy
snowpacks across Oregon —
in some cases, snowpacks are
more than double the average
level.
The statewide snowpack
is at 175 percent of average,
but the Harney, Malheur and
Owyhee basins in southeast
Oregon all have levels above
220 percent of average.
There are currently no
basins in Oregon with be-
low average snowpacks. The
Hood, Sandy and Lower De-
schutes basin in northwest Or-
egon has the lowest snowpack
level, but it still clocks in at
a respectable 107 percent of
average.
Rain also has been more
than adequate across with
state, with precipitation lev-
els ranging from 129 percent
of average to 160 percent of
average.
To compare, the statewide
snowpack level was 60 per-
cent of average at this point
in 2014 and would fall even
further in the ensuing months
and into spring.
Back then, southeast Or-
egon basins were the only
ones above average but they
also severely diminished over
time.
Extreme drought con-
ditions are almost gone in
Idaho, dropping to 1 percent
from 8 percent the week be-
fore, according to the drought
monitor. Extreme conditions
in Idaho peaked at 29 percent
of the state in August and Sep-
tember.
Snowpack levels in Ida-
ho are way above normal in
many basins and well ahead
of where they were this time
last year.
Snowpack in the Bruneau
basin in southwestern Idaho
was 224 percent of normal on
Dec. 23, according to Natural
Resources Conservation Ser-
vice Snotel sites. Snowpack
levels in the Northern Pan-
handle region were at 102 per-
cent of normal and they were
at 99 percent of normal in the
Spokane River basin.
In West and southwest Ida-
ho, snowpack in the Weiser
basin was 193 percent of nor-
mal, and it was 168 and 167
percent of normal in the Pay-
ette and Boise basins, respec-
tively. In East Idaho, snow-
pack levels in the Snake River
basin above Palisades were at
106 percent of normal.
Water managers said it’s
a good start to the season but
the snow needs to continue
falling because most reser-
voirs ended the 2015 season
with less carryover water than
they did in 2014.
“We’re very thankful for
this precipitation and just
hope it hangs on,” said Pay-
ette River System Watermas-
ter Ron Shurtleff.
Reporters Don Jenkins,
Tim Headren, Sean Ellis and
Mateusz Perkowski contribut-
ed to this report.
Biotech proponents have opposed disclosure requirements because of fears of vandalism
GMO from Page 1
The plaintiffs also agreed
to stop seeking $4.2 million
in compensation for the re-
moval of their alfalfa crops,
which are “Roundup Ready”
varieties resistant to glypho-
sate herbicides.
Other growers of geneti-
cally engineered alfalfa can
“opt in” to the settlement by
submitting sworn documents
identifying where their crops
are grown, either with satel-
lite data or other geographic
information, within 30 days
of the deal’s approval.
The information will be
submitted to attorneys rep-
resenting biotech critics who
intervened in the case and
the data would be covered
by an “attorneys eyes only”
protective order.
Biotech proponents have
opposed disclosure require-
ments, such as a bill pro-
posed during the 2015 leg-
islative session in Oregon,
because of fears of vandal-
ism.
In 2013, two fields of
genetically engineered sug-
ar beets were destroyed in
Jackson County, which the
Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion called a crime of “eco-
nomic sabotage.”
Ron Bjork, president of
the Jackson County Farm
Bureau, said some farmers
may forgo submitting the
sworn document and simply
phase out their biotech alfal-
fa fields within the allotted
time.
“I don’t know if they will
give it to them or not. It’s up
to every farmer to make their
own decision,” he said.
Bjork noted that Jackson
County doesn’t have dedi-
cated agricultural experts or
a laboratory to test whether
crops are genetically modified
organisms.
Before county authorities
could even try to verify that
a GMO crop is being grown,
they’d likely first have to get
a complaint and then obtain a
search warrant, he said.
“The question is who is
going to go out and enforce
it,” Bjork said.
Devin Huseby, an attor-
ney for Jackson County, said
no decisions have been made
about the enforcement about
the county’s ordinance.
“It would be total specu-
lation whether people are go-
ing to come forward or not,”
Huseby said.
The ordinance is now in ef-
fect and biotech growers who
don’t submit field information
are “flagrantly violating the
law,” said George Kimbrell,
attorney for the Center For
Food Safety, a non-profit that
intervened in the case to sup-
port the ban.
Kimbrell said the most
important aspect of the settle-
ment is that the “right to farm”
ruling won’t be challenged,
rather than whether farmers
will follow the disclosure re-
quirement.
“People don’t follow the
law sometimes, but that’s at
their own risk,” he said.
Shannon Armstrong, attor-
ney for the plaintiffs, said the
deal sought to protect farmers’
privacy as much as possible.
“We’re just thrilled other
farmers of Roundup Ready
alfalfa will be able to opt in
to this settlement agreement,”
she said.