“This is really huge. It’s what we’ve waited almost five years for with regulatory approval,” says Neal Carter, founder and president of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, the Canadian company that engineered the apples. “Now we can get down to business planting trees and selling Arctic apples. We’re stoked.”
The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service granted its approval “… based on a final plant pest risk assessment that finds the GE (genetically engineered) apples are unlikely to pose a plant pest risk to agriculture and other plants in the United States … [and] deregulation is not likely to have a significant impact on the human environment.”
The Food and Drug Administration is not required to approve genetically engineered crops for consumption. Most companies engage in a voluntary safety review process with the FDA, and Okanagan is doing that.
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“It takes two years to build a nursery and another two years to get fruit,” says Carter. “We’re saying 20 acres of trees in the ground this spring will produce a small amount of fruit by fall 2016.”
When that time comes, Carter doesn’t feel his company should be forced to use a GMO label.
“We’ve spent time and money on five years of regulatory work to prove and to demonstrate our product is as safe as any other,” he says. “Label it just like any other apple. We’ll have information at the point of sale, and we’re very transparent on our website. Let the consumer decide.”
