Agri Groups Call USDA to Handle Animal Biotech Regulatory Approvals

Agriculture groups submitted a letter to the US Department of Agriculture to call for the advancement of its own gene editing regulations.

In the letter dated April 14, 2022, the groups emphasized the numerous challenges faced in livestock production. They said that access to genetic innovations such as gene editing is necessary to address such challenges, but the existing regulations of the US Food and Drug Administration are unlikely to follow a path to market.

“The FDA's current regulatory approach – an approach that producers, other stakeholders, and Congress have repeatedly expressed concern with – will only stifle U.S. producers' access to much-needed innovations. Under the status quo, FDA regulators make case-by-case decisions on innovations to determine their regulatory pathway, data requirements, and ultimate market opportunities. The decades-long approval process for these technologies is based on FDA exercising enforcement discretion under agency guidance rather than through rule making. This is an untenable way to regulate,” the letter explains.

The letter was signed by the American Soybean Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, National Milk Producers Federation, National Sorghum Producers, National Turkey Federation, and the American Sheep Industry Association.