Graduate Students Request to Deregulate Process of GM Crop Development

A group of graduate students from University of Minnesota College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (CFANS) published a petition addressed to U.S. representatives to write a bipartisan bill to deregulate the process for developing genetically modified crops that have the potential to produce sustainable sources of fiber and fuel (not food).

The group specifically asks for the bill so that either the Environmental Protection Agency or the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issues the approval, rather than the current requirement of both agencies approving. The graduate students cite that each of them has numerous ideas about genetic modification that could be developed into start-up crop companies and bring more competition into the marketplace dominated by a few mega-companies that can afford the regulatory process.

"Since we are limiting our request to apply to fuel and fiber crops only, avoiding the regulatory framework of the Food and Drug Administration should make it less challenging to write and pass such a bill," they said.

Read the letter published in AGWEEK.