<img alt=“sugar beet pic” src=“https://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/sugar%20beet%20pic” width=“240” height=“161” align=“right” hspace=“10px”//> Sweets fans take note: the fate of the US sugar supply is now uncertain. A federal judge has revoked the approval of genetically modified sugar beets -– the source of half of the United States’ sugar.

After this year’s harvest, farmers will not be able to grow the crop until the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) completes an environmental impact assessment. The USDA has said that could take until April 2012, according to the Center for Food Safety, one of the environmental groups that filed the lawsuit.

The USDA approved the beets, which carry an herbicide-resistance gene, five years ago. In September 2009, Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California determined that the USDA had not adequately considered the crop’s potential effects on the environment. Judge White then followed through last Friday with a ban on the crop pending the new environmental impact statement, a move reminiscent of a Supreme Court decision regarding genetically modified alfalfa earlier this year.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the decision will affect 95% of the US sugar-beet harvest. Farmers aren’t even sure how much conventional seed is still available these days, and some farmers have sold off the equipment needed to grow conventional beets. And according to ABC News, Monsanto (the company that developed the crop) told the court that revoking approval of the seed could cost “the company and its customers” $2 billion in 2011 and 2012.

Image: Gilles San Martin via Flickr, some rights reserved