The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology and the US Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) co-sponsored a roundtable discussion to illuminate challenges that biotech specialty crop industry encounter with the regulatory system. According to the participants at the workshop, there are many opportunities to improve the regulatory system, and make it favorable to the biotech specialty crops sector.

Highlights of the discussion include:

• Specialty crops form a vital sector of the U.S. economy, yet the development of biotech crops face particular regulatory challenges.
• A number of options are present that could ease the regulatory burden including the development of tiered risk assessments and regulation revisions to increase transparency and predictability.

An overview of the conference agenda and the full paper from the workshop, entitled Emerging Challenges for Biotech Specialty Crops, can be viewed at http://www.pewagbiotech.org/events/0118/. For more information, contact Kara Flynn at kflynn@pewagbiotech.org..