The Biotechnology Innovation Organization appreciates that USDA and the Biden Administration are aiming to increase access to modern, innovative seeds. We are reviewing USDA’s report, “More and Better Choices for Farmers: Promoting Fair Competition and Innovation in Seeds and Other Agricultural Inputs,” to identify potential concerns about weakening intellectual property protections for biotech companies. Strong patents, and an efficient, predictable and objective patent system, are critical to the seeds industry, which depends on patent-driven activities to fuel the development of new inventions and products that benefit the public. The patent system helps drive the development of improved seed and crop protection products that address challenges such as increasing harvests, allowing conservation of arable land and, ultimately, helping to feed the world’s growing population. Notably, almost all the foregoing activities are highly regulated by government agencies such as the FDA, EPA and USDA, which have decided that these developments are socially useful and should be promoted. However, one of the greatest challenges to expanding biotech’s benefits to more producers, as well as growing agriculture’s sustainability and the world’s food security, is the cost and time it takes to bring new traits to market due to the regulatory structure. Studies have found that over the past decade, the cost of regulation for biotech trait commercialization has grown more than 23 percent while regulatory timeframes grew 75 percent. While scientific advancements have made commercialization more efficient, the resulting cost and time savings have been nearly canceled out by increases in regulatory costs and delays. Identifying and addressing such barriers to biotech innovation, as called for in President Biden’s Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy, is the best way to increase farmers’ and…

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization welcomes today’s announcement by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that it is initiating a technical consultation with Mexico over that country’s plan to ban imports of biotech corn. “BIO applauds the efforts of USTR and USDA to resolve this issue through negotiations,” said Nancy Travis, vice president for international affairs at BIO. “However, it’s time to send a strong message to the government of Mexico and return to the science-based trading system and obligations to which both our countries committed when we signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. “In addition to the economic harm that Mexico’s proposed ban will have on U.S. corn producers, the ban will have a devastating impact on the agricultural innovation needed to achieve our climate goals and ensure we can meet the world’s growing demand for food. BIO has called for the Biden Administration to use the dispute settlement process in USMCA to provide a framework and timeline to resolve this issue. Today’s announcement of a technical consultation with Mexico is a vital first step to restoring policies that enable farmers to use agricultural biotechnology products and improve food security and sustainability.”