US sugar production could be cut by 20% next year if sugar beet growers cannot plant GMO varieties next season, the US Department of Agriculture has said in an analysis made for the court ruling on the crop’s immediate future.

Earlier this year District Judge Jeffrey White ruled Roundup Ready sugar beet could not be grown again until the USDA carried out a more extensive environmental impact study.

Around 1.6m tons of sugar beet production would be lost without a supply of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready varieties next season, Daniel Colacicco, a USDA economist, said in the analysis.

“The limited availability of conventional seed will severely restrict plantings of sugar beet in 2011,” he wrote in his report.

Last year, around 95% of the crop was from genetically modified varieties.