Carr Explores the Future of Food and Agriculture Through Innovation and Technology

Karen and host Vonnie Estes, Vice President of Innovation at IFPA, discussed Karen’s 15 years at the forefront of guiding companies through complex regulatory matters with an evolving landscape of agriculture technology law and its implications for the industry.

Karen said, “I often say that I have the most interesting law practice that anybody could ever have, so I count myself to be very lucky to get to practice in the space.”

The conversation included key topics like the regulatory environment for new breeding technologies used to improve agricultural products.

“I think to talk about sort of gene editing policy, it really helps to think about where we started and the fundamental principles of what the intent was with respect to regulation in this space,” Karen said, adding “[that regulators who back in the 1980s were establishing the regulatory process decided that, instead of  looking at the process by which something is created or developed,] that they would rather look at the product itself, the product that’s making its way out of the farm into consumers’ hands, is that particular product safe?”

Karen touched on recent implications from a federal court decision that vacated key provisions of the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) rule on biotech crops.

Karen said, “As often happens in this biotechnology space, that final rule that came out in May of 2020 was challenged in court. And ultimately, after several years of litigation, the court found what it determined to be errors in USDA’s rule-making process that the process that it used to promulgate the rule and the way that it explained the rule were problematic from particular standpoints.”

Looking ahead, Karen shared how she hopes to see new breeding technologies develop.

“I think one of the most important, maybe goals of thinking through how to use new breeding techniques and other tools to improve products, is to make sure that consumers and producers have as many options as they can, options in terms of what to choose at the grocery store, what kind of foods, what price point they’re at.”

She added, “It’s really important for producers to have options in how to grow, how to respond to their environments that they’re growing in.”

Listen to the full podcast episode here.