Attendees at Tuesday’s Second Generation Ag Biotech Conference, including Biotech Working Group Chair Darrin Ihnen, right, discussed anticipated regulatory challenges associated with new biotech products.

Regulatory Challenges, New Innovations Discussed at NCGA’s Second Generation Ag Biotech Conference (03-16-05)

Discussions on the impact of biotech products on the regulatory system and how the industry can get those products to market without disrupting trade highlighted the National Corn Growers Association’s (NCGA) Second Generation Ag Biotech Conference Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Providing smaller markets with biotechnology products and streamlining current regulatory systems also were hot topics at the one-day event.

Darrin Ihnen, chair of NCGA’s Biotech Working Group, noted that a tremendous amount of research is being conducted to develop the next generation of agriculture biotech products.

“In the United States, industry and academic institutions are conducting research to increase drought tolerance, engineer plants to produce a variety of compounds including plastics and pharmaceuticals, and develop technologies to aid plant and animal biotechnology that are unique in their mechanism,” he said. “Research includes creating entire chromosomes to allow the rapid and accurate introgression of multiple genes, the ability to specifically interrupt gene expression by the use of interference RNA or the specific activation of genes using chemical ligands.”

Ihnen emphasized that new innovations by U.S. researchers will force regulatory agencies to deal with a broad range of new events and technologies that will be introduced in the future.

“The agencies that have done such a good job of regulating biotech issues seem to be forward thinking and proactive,” he said. “They are ready to deal with new technologies and products from other nations. We applaud the vision of these organizations to further improve the regulatory system; they are continuing to work to make the system transparent and understandable.”

The conference was attended by more than 100 people, including corn growers, industry leaders, government officials and others interested in the future of agricultural biotechnology.