Turkey Cancels Anti-Biotech Regulation, Restores Importation of U.S. Soy

Today Turkey’s Agriculture Ministry sent an official order to the ports and other parties that the Ministry was officially informed by the Council of State that the Biotech Regulation dated Oct. 26, 2009 was cancelled. The Oct. 26 regulation on biotechnology and its amendments are null and void as of now, and the controls on feed and food import will be carried out as per conditions before Oct. 26.

Soybeans that are currently stored in bonded warehouses in Turkey as they awaited import permission can now be imported into Turkey.

The Oct. 26 biotechnology regulation banned the import of any biotech product unless it was accompanied by official documentation showing that any biotech event in a shipment had been registered and commercially available in the originating country for a period of three years. The American Soybean Association (ASA) was concerned that this requirement would effectively halt U.S. soy exports to Turkey because two new soybean biotech varieties were commercialized just this year.

ASA has worked closely with the U.S. government, the American Soybean Association International Marketing (ASA-IM) and U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) staffs, as well as other impacted industries, to find a solution to the situation that temporarily shut down almost $1 billion worth of U.S. exports to Turkey.