US food safety advocate group Center for Food Safety (CFS) has sued the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), charging that it illegally withheld public information on GMO crops. The suit asks the court to declare APHIS actions unlawful and order the agency to produce the records by a date to be set by the court.

In particular, CFS contends that the USDA arm failed to respond as required to requests for records it said relate to many concerns about the crops. Thus, it violated the US Freedom of Information Act “dozens of times” over more than 13 years.

The advocacy group also accuses the agency of failing to respond to inquiries about the handling of experimental genetically engineered wheat found growing uncontrolled in an Oregon field in 2013 – an incident that reportedly led to lost US wheat export sales as foreign markets feared contaminated supplies.

Requests are said to have covered GMO wheat, rice, alfalfa, sugar beets, bent grass, corn and other GMOs.

Food safety groups as well as lawmakers have repeatedly criticized US regulation of GMOs as being too lax. APHIS also has been cited in government auditing for oversight lapses. In July of this year, President Barack Obama directed APHIS as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to improve and modernize their regulatory framework.