Biotech Updates

Positive EU Safety Decision for LibertyLink® Soybeans

September 28, 2007

The American Soybean Association (ASA), composed of 24,000 producer-members, announced in a recent press release the positive safety opinion on Bayer Crop Science's LibertyLink® soybean by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This critical regulatory milestone in the European Union brings closer the commercialization of another biotech-enhanced soybean trait. This new biotechn soybean is genetically-modified to resist Liberty®, a post-emergence contact herbicide that controls grass and broadleaf weeds.

ASA President John Hoffman, a producer from Waterloo, Iowa said that  "The availability of a seed variety that tolerates a different herbicide will promote market competition and provide an additional in-crop weed control option that can be an effective management tool to minimize the selection for herbicide resistant weeds and enhance the sustainability of U.S. soybean production."

The LibertyLink soybeans have already obtained full approval for for food, feed and cultivation in the United States and Canada, for importation into other seven countries, and are being negotiated in EU and China.

See complete press release at: http://www.soygrowers.com/newsroom/releases/2007_releases/r092107.htm