The already tight regulations will be more rigorously controlled. In their recently issued draft guidance, USDA and FDA suggested that pharmaceutical-producing plants that out-cross should be grown only in areas of the country where little or none of the plant's food or feed counterparts are grown. In response to this guidance, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) issued a statement on Oct. 22, 2002, that its members involved in this area of biotechnology would "commit to grow regulated articles that are derived from outcrossing food and feed crops, but which are intended not to be in food or feed, only in areas of the country that are not centers of that crop's production" (such as no corn-based regulated articles in the Midwestern CornBelt). BIO stresses that this policy applies only to plants (capable of outcrossing) developed to produce proteins and enzymes for pharmaceutical and industrial applications, and that it does not include self-pollinating plants, such as soybeans, rice orbarley. BIO members have pledged not to grow corn not intended for food or feed use in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and portions of Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska. Missouri. Kentucky and Ohio.
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