British Sugar don't want it. Even the US food industry don't want it. And according to Syngenta (see below) "We don't commercialize things customers will have trouble selling," So how come the UK government spending millions on Farm Scale Trials that include GM sugar beet?

This Wall Street Journal also makes it clear that the main reason the food industry has similarly 'banned' other GM crops is simply practicality:

"So much of the corn and soybeans produced in the U.S. are genetically modified that it is impractical for most food companies to avoid bioengineered ingredients from these commodities.

However, newer and smaller transgenic crops -- such as the herbicide-tolerant sugar beet -- are becoming expendable in the eyes of food executives."
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Refiners Shun Bioengineered Sugar Beets, Frustrating Plans for Monsanto, Aventis
By S COTT K ILMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The food industry has soured on genetically modified sugar.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of bioengineered seeds for growing herbicide-tolerant sugar beet plants are gathering dust. The nation's sugar refiners are telling their farmers to avoid the seed even though it has been cleared by U.S. regulators. Sugar executives say many of their customers -- candy and food manufacturers -- aren't willing to accept bioengineered sugar until the debate over the safety of crop biotechnology dies down.

"We did ask farmers not to grow GM [genetically modified] sugar beets," said John Long, a spokesman for Hershey Foods Corp., Hershey, Pa. "It isn't because we have a safety concern. We wanted to delay this until the issue related to public perception of GM crops has been fully resolved," he said.

M&M/Mars, Hackettstown, N.J., said Thursday that it also doesn't want to use sugar from genetically modified sugar beets.

Sugar beets, grown by 12,000 farmers in states such as North Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan, are the source of roughly half of the granular sugar consumed in the U.S. The sugar beet, which can weigh several pounds, is white and far bigger than the red table beet grown as a side dish.

The U.S. food industry's shunning of genetically modified sugar is a setback for crop biotechnology rivals Monsanto Co. and Aventis SA, and a major blow for the handful of sugar-beet breeders licensed to use their genes. Monsanto's gene gives plants immunity to its Roundup herbicide, making it possible for farmers to chemically weed their fields without damaging their own crops, an innovation that is creating more farmer demand for Roundup. Likewise, the Aventis gene gives plants immunity to its Liberty herbicide.

Sugar beets are a minor U.S. crop, grown on just 1.43 million acres this year, but the niche could be very lucrative for Monsanto and Aventis, which are trying to recoup their investment in herbicide-resistant genes by getting them into several crops. Some sugar-beet breeders figured their industry would probably pay tens of millions of dollars annually for using the genes.

Monsanto, which licensed three U.S. sugar-beet seed firms to use its Roundup Ready gene, had expected the seed to be in the hands of farmers as early as 1999. A spokeswoman for the St. Louis concern, which is 85%-owned by Pharmacia Corp., said the food industry's ban isn't having a material impact on earnings.

Aventis, a French pharmaceuticals firm, said U.S. regulators cleared its herbicide-resistant sugar beet last year. An Aventis official said it is still "enthusiastic" about the prospects for genetically modified sugar beets, but doesn't have concrete plans for commercialization.

The food industry's informal ban is far more damaging to the sugar-beet breeders that invested several millions of dollars and years of effort to producing large amounts of genetically modified seed that they now can't sell. A living organism, sugar-beet seed loses its vigor if not planted in a couple years.

"We'll probably end up having to discard a lot of seed," said Joe Dahmer, president of Betaseed Inc., Shakopee, Minn., which has been incorporating the Liberty-tolerant gene into its sugar-beet breeding lines. "We don't see any prospects for selling it in 2002 or anytime soon." Betaseed is the sugar-beet seed unit of KWS Saat AG of Germany.

Likewise, the Hilleshog sugar-beet seed unit of Syngenta AG, Basel, Switzerland, is putting off any plans for a U.S. launch of seeds containing the Roundup-tolerant gene. "We don't commercialize things customers will have trouble selling," a Syngenta spokesman said.

Many of the food companies shunning bioengineered sugar have used ingredients derived from genetically modified versions of corn and soybeans since 1996. U.S. corn and soybean farmers are expected to plant 66.7 million acres of bioengineered seed this year.

Objections by environmental and consumer groups about this first wave of genetically modified crops are making many food firms leery about being identified with the technology. So much of the corn and soybeans produced in the U.S. are genetically modified that it is impractical for most food companies to avoid bioengineered ingredients from these commodities.

However, newer and smaller transgenic crops -- such as the herbicide-tolerant sugar beet -- are becoming expendable in the eyes of food executives.

-- From The Wall Street Journal