Biotech Rider

Continuing Resolution HR 933 that President Obama signed into law last week was intended to prevent the federal government from shutting down when current funding was set to expire on March 27. One would not think of HR 933 as a target for food activists, but that’s where one would be wrong. Section 735 of the Continuing Resolution has some groups rallying the troops, referring to it as the “biotech rider”. The provision allows the USDA to override judicial rulings and grant temporary permits for farmers to plant and grow GMO crops while pending scientific or regulatory review, where before a judge could suspend the planting and selling of GMO crops during such review. Food activists are calling for the President to remove section 735 from the resolution, claiming that the provision “will enable biotech lobbyists to ensure new GMO crops can evade any serious review”. Those in defense of the provision interpret its language differently, seeing it merely as an attempt by Congress to give farmers the confidence that they will be able to harvest and sell crops they were given an okay by the USDA to go ahead and plant.