Genetically modified (GM) sugar beets reached the end of a rocky regulatory road when the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in July fully approved the variety for commercial cultivation. The fate of the beet had been in limbo for nearly three years. Developed by St. Louis–based Monsanto, the Genuity Roundup Ready beet is genetically modified to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate through the insertion of a gene encoding the enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase protein. The plant was initially approved, or deregulated, by the USDA in 2005. But in 2009, after a lawsuit brought by the Center for Food Safety, a US district court judge ruled that the USDA failed to examine the likelihood of transmission of the genetically modified gene to conventional and organic sugar beets and beet relatives, and the socioeconomic effects on growers of these crops. The court ordered the agency to address these issues in an environmental impact statement and voided the USDA's 2005 approval of the crop. To allow GM beet cultivation to continue while it worked on the environmental review, the USDA in February 2011 partially deregulated Monsanto's beet but with strict planting restrictions. The agency completed its impact study in June and the following month fully approved the crop.