With UK farmscale GM beet (and OSR) trial locations due to be announced Monday, this shows the utter fatuousness of the whole endeavour.

Thanks to Wytze for this excellent news.
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23-02-01 By Kees de Vre

Enkhuizen(NL)- Syngenta (Novartis&Astra Zeneca), one of the  world's biggest biotechcompanies, stops in Europe with trials of GE sugarbeets.

A spokesperson for Syngenta in Enkhuizen confirms the policy change. He denies that Syngenta is "dropping completely out of biotechnology" Syngenta keeps having good faith in the possibilities of biotechnology, he says.

The so-called herbicide resistant sugarbeet, with which the company also is testing in the Netherlands, is according to the spokesperson among other things good for the environment. The bad consumer climate in Europe concerning genetically changed foods forces the biotechgiant to take this step.

According to the Syngenta spokesperson it "is not realistic that  Europe will accept the GE sugarbeet within the coming 5 years. That's why we will temporarily stop our efforts in this area"

Source: Trouw Daily