USDA rejects biotech blue chrysanthemum request

National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Japan Blue chrysanthemums were developed by Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Organization in cooperation with the Suntory company's Global Innovation Center. The USDA recently decided that genetically engineered blue chrysanthemums cannot be freely imported and moved within the U.S. as cut flowers.

Chrysanthemums genetically engineered to produce blue flowers cannot be freely imported into the U.S. and traded as non-regulated crops under a new USDA decision.

Most requests for non-regulated status for genetically-altered crops in recent years have met with approval from the agency’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, so the recent rejection of Suntory Flowers Limited’s application to import cut flowers is rare.

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