NEW ORLEANS, La. — U.S. farm groups worry that a review of the country’s biotechnology rules will result in the regulation of more technologies.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is amending its regulations in light of new advances in science and technology.
The regulations were implemented in 1987, and the last major revision was in 1993.
APHIS has gathered written and oral submissions, including ones on the scope of future regulations.
“Should APHIS regulate based on the characteristics of biotechnology products and the potential risks they may pose, or by the process by which they were created?” the document said.
Read Also
Canada’s plant hardiness zones receive update
The latest update to Canada’s plant hardiness zones and plant hardiness maps was released this summer.
“In either case, what criteria should be used to determine what APHIS regulates?”
Those questions worry the National Association of Wheat Growers.
“We’re very concerned that perhaps techniques that we believe are something less than biotechnology may be regulated,” said NAWG president Gordon Stoner.
NAWG is particularly concerned that the emerging science of gene editing using new technologies such as CRISPR could soon face the same regulatory burden as genetically modified crops.
“My sense is (APHIS) is looking for something to find to regulate,” he said.
Stoner said gene editing is not about inserting new genes into a plant. Instead, it is about turning existing genes on and off.
Crops such as cotton, corn and soybeans have benefited from genetic modification. There are no commercial lines of GM wheat on the market because consumers are particularly sensitive about that crop.
It’s why NAWG wants public breeding programs to have access to technologies such as gene editing.
“We very much want to see innovation in wheat,” said Stoner.
“We don’t want government in our lives, and so when government wants to regulate one of our inputs, we push back.”
NAWG is also deeply troubled by a court case launched last year seeking to regulate seed treatments.
A coalition of beekeepers, farmers and environmental activists are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its failure to regulate seeds treated with neonicotinoids the same way as pesticides containing the active ingredient.
Stoner said all treated varieties would have to be regulated if the coalition is successful, which would prove too onerous.
“Effectively it would pull all seed treats off the market,” he said.
Stoner said he relies heavily on seed treatments on his farm in Montana.
“If I were to lose seed treats, much of my crop would not get out of the ground,” he said.
“We have a little creature called wireworm that comes up in the spring when we’re planting and eats the heart out of the seed before it even gets out of the ground.”
