(ASA)

In response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s withdrawal of its proposed rule to overhaul federal regulation on biotechnology and plant breeding innovations like gene editing.

American Soybean Association President and Illinois farmer Ron Moore issued the following statement, “USDA’s withdrawal of the proposed rule is both a positive and a negative for soybean farmers.

On the plus side, there were a considerable number of aspects about the rule that would have stifled innovation and created additional regulatory uncertainty and ambiguity. So we’re happy that USDA recognized the flaws in portions of the proposed rule and has taken it back to square one so that those may be remedied.

We appreciate that the proposed rule addressed gene editing techniques and we hope that, however USDA opts to move forward with rulemaking, they will maintain a positive focus on these new technologies.

Specifically, we hope that USDA will continue to recognize that new plant breeding innovations are distinct from and do not fall under the same USDA regulatory review process as transgenic biotechnology.”