A few weekends back the DJ was having some fun with the music, and suddenly I was hearing new takes on old songs, whether it was the sounds of a female voice (I don’t really know who it was…) singing over the top of a Michael Jackson beat, or even a classic Tribe Called Quest song playing with their standard use of samples. It was awesome. They were mash-ups, remixes, hip hop classics at the mercy of, well, the hands of, a talented DJ who knows how to play with the anatomy of a beat. The art form of turning a something that wasn’t what it was originally into something new that sounds just as sweet, or maybe even better. But that’s a different kind of beat…

I practically want to get on a plane and give this judge a hug this ruling. Listen to this opening line: “A federal judge on Friday banned the planting of genetically modified sugar beets engineered by Monsanto Co…” It’s like sweet music coming over the speakers…

Ok, so now you know where I stand. I think genetic engineering of crops is a bad, bad, bad idea. Ask me why and I will point to the most recent things I can think of- genetically altered seeds blowing into neighboring fields where organic farmers are not using them and then seeing those farmers sued by Monsanto for copyright infringement; reading yesterday that the era of anti-biotics is ending, as all of the diseases are getting resistant- well, you can pretty much say the same thing for all of the Monsanto seeds that are engineered to grow with Round up. It’s a setup that will work for a while, a few years or a few decades (if you’re lucky) and then you are right back where you started. And I just think it’s wrong.

But those are my emotional and anecdotal arguments. This guy, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, has already ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved Monsanto’s genetically modified sugar beets without adequate environmental study, and I love him forever for that. If you want to argue about the definition of a word like “adequate,” get a sympathetic judge and start insisting that there is no way we could adequately test what genetically altered plants will do generations from now, computers or no.

This is a victory, a big one, and a satisfying thumb in the eye of Monsanto.  

"It's a victory for farmers, for the environment and for the public," said George Kimbrell, a senior staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety.

There are a whole lot of numbers involved, with percentages and whatnot, but I am going to focus on one number right now: 0. That is, zero. That is how many genetically engineered sugar beet seeds can be planted next year. Their time is done. Just two years ago we were planting what they’re calling “conventional” seeds- as in, natural seeds. As in, the same seeds we’ve been using for thousands of years. As in, the seeds that the old beets gave us to grow more beets.

Let’s just use those.

Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon