Under pressure from a Corn Belt senator, biotechnology companies have dropped a self-imposed ban on growing pharmaceutical crops in heartland states only a month before the moratorium was scheduled to begin. "We do not wish to appear to encourage discrimination against any part of the country," Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) spokeswoman Lisa Dry said.

BIO members pledged in October to stop growing plants not intended for human or animal food in federally designated heartland areas, including Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and parts of Nebraska and five other states. The policy was set to take effect in 2003.

Since BIO first announced the voluntary ban, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) worked to revise the policy, which he called "a hasty decision…based on a knee-jerk response to special interest groups instead of sound science," Grassley said in a statement issued last week. "Biotechnology has the potential to be a multimillion dollar industry for Iowa," Grassley explained.

According to Dry, BIO president Carl Feldbaum met with the senator privately on December 3 at the legislator's request. There, Feldbaum delivered a letter explaining BIO's revised position. "Iowa should be much better served with the new position BIO has taken," Grassley said.

When the policy was first announced, BIO explained that it was established after "extensive conversations with members of the food chain," including food manufacturers. In light of BIO's latest policy shift, Grocery Manufacturers of America spokeswoman Stephanie Childs said, "We will continue to push for stronger and even mandatory regulations of these crops to maintain absolute safety of the food supply."

Dry said the new policy was not related to recent charges against ProdiGene, one of the 15 companies that had agreed to the moratorium. The Texas-based firm will spend about $3 million to settle a federal investigation into possible contamination of food crops in violation of the firm's permit. The US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration announced on December 6 that ProdiGene must buy back about $2.8 million of soy, which may have been mixed with about a cupful of leaves and stalks from transgenic ProdiGene corn, in addition to paying a $250,000 fine.