Republicans on the House China panel probed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding its clearance of a Chinese biotech firm to sell genetically engineered soybeans in the United States.
The USDA said its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service reviewed the new high oleic acid soybean by Qi Biodesign and determined it has no authority to regulate the soybean.
Qi Biodesign is a Chinese agricultural biotech firm established in Beijing in 2021. The company is partially funded by CAS Star, a Chinese venture capital entity directly controlled by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China’s official science and research institute.
In a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the lawmakers expressed concerns that the USDA appeared to “have facilitated Qi Biodesign’s regulatory status review in a matter of weeks, raising questions about the level of due diligence and motivation behind the rapid review.” […]
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