(Reuters) — U.S. president Barack Obama’s administration has directed the three agencies that oversee biotech crop products to improve and modernize their regulatory framework to boost public confidence in a system that critics call a failure.
The order followed demands by consumers, food-related organizations and businesses for tighter U.S. regulation of genetically modified crops amid a nationwide debate over whether they should be labeled.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed a rule in 2008 but eventually withdrew it.
Biotech crops are regulated through the government’s co-ordinated framework, which involves the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.
