Biotech Updates

USDA APHIS Releases Regulatory Status Review for Modified Sweet Orange and Maize

October 30, 2024

The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service released a response to the regulatory status review for sweet orange modified to impart resistance to citrus greening through reduced production of two host targets of Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus effector proteins.

The response letter signed by Bernadette Juarez, APHIS Deputy Administrator for Biotechnology Regulatory Services indicated that “APHIS has determined the sweet orange is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk relative to its comparators. Once APHIS determines that a plant product is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk relative to its comparator, and, thus, is not a plant pest or a plant that requires regulation because it is capable of introducing or disseminating a plant pest, APHIS has no authority to regulate it under 7 CFR part 340.”

A similar response was granted to the request for a regulatory status review of modified maize with resistance to northern corn leaf blight, resistance to gray leaf spot, resistance to anthracnose stalk rot, and resistance to southern corn rust.

View APHIS responses to the applications of sweet orange and maize.


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