The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA/APHIS) to “support the development of a document on the Best Practices to Prevent Unintended Release of Regulated Bioengineered Plants.”

The grant provides funding to NCGA to work with biotechnology providers and corn growers to stop unintended releases from occurring.

“NCGA has worked with the tech providers and APHIS to prevent unintended releases from occurring,” said Martin Barbre, chair of NCGA’s Biotech Working Group. “It’s imperative for industry and corn growers that these releases do not happen. With this grant, it should provide a policy that ought to prevent that from happening again.”

“NCGA has worked with industry and biotech providers for years to make sure all biotech events have passed regulations,” said Paul Bertels, NCGA director of biotechnology. “This grant will continue to support NCGA programs that are in line with the USDA/APHIS goals.”

NCGA and industry representatives are working on details with USDA/APHIS.