On May 3, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) issued its proposed rule implementing the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) passed by Congress in July 2016. AMS is proposing a crop-based approach, where disclosure would be required when a food is or contains a crop, or a derivative of a crop, that is included on one of two lists to be developed by the agency. The first list would include crops that are commercially available in bioengineered (BE) forms where the BE form has been highly adopted, such as canola, field corn, soybean, and sugar beet. The second list would include list crops commercially available in a BE form but adopted at a rate of less than 85 percent, such as non-browning cultivars of apple, sweet corn, papaya, potato, and summer squash. In addition to the three disclosure options listed in the statute – text, symbol, or digital/electronic link – AMS proposes to allow use of a text message disclosure option.
