BIO's food fight

The Biotechnology Industry Organization is in the middle of a fight between powerful corn state politicians and food manufacturers over its proposed moratorium on growing pharmaceutical-producing corn in the U.S. corn belt.

BIO's policy commits its members to grow plant-expressed pharmaceutical products that are not intended to be in food or feed "only in areas of the country that are not centers of that crop's production." Although the policy applies to several crops and potentially to enzymes as well as drugs, the epicenter of the political reaction has been in Iowa, where the economy and political power are based on corn. ...