ASA and the United States Biotech Crops Association (USBCA) thanked the White House and Capitol Hill this week for continued efforts to establish a timely, comprehensive framework agreement for biotech approvals in China, and emphasized the importance of the U.S.- China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) in December.

“Action on only a subset of biotech-enhanced crops will not provide the necessary predictability to the U.S. value chain as there continues to be crops authorized for cultivation in the United States that are not approved in China,” the groups state. “This creates untenable risk to exporters of U.S. origin grains and oilseeds and provides an advantage to competitor agricultural exporting nations.”

China is a key export market for U.S. soybean, but the trade is at risk due to China’s restrictive regulatory approval procedures for biotech products. The letters state re-establishing a predictable process for enabling compliance with Chinese laws and regulations regarding biotechnology products will enable U.S. agriculture to continue to supply China’s demand for imported commodities without disruption, and allow U.S. farmers access to innovative products developed to improve yields and reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture.

“China remains the utmost international priority for the U.S. Biotech Crops Alliance,” the letter to Capitol Hill states. “We look forward to continuing to work closely with your office as the framework agreement is being crafted and implemented. Accordingly, we request a high level meeting with you and the leadership of the USBCA in early 2015 to discuss how to maintain the level of engagement required to bring this issue to resolution in the near term.”

Click here to read both letters.