Upload Now
Here is a term paper on ‘Biotechnology and Transgenic Crops’ for 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short term papers on ‘Biotechnology and Transgenic Crops’ especially written for school and college students.
Term Paper on Biotechnology and Transgenic Crops
Term Paper Contents:
- Term Paper on the Transgenic Approaches to Crop Improvement
- Term Paper on Biosafety and Transgenic Crops
- Term Paper on Biosafety Regulations and Equitable Access
- Term Paper on the Improvement of Transgenic Technologies
- Term Paper on Biodiversity and Plant Biotechnology
- Term Paper on Human Health and Transgenic Foods
1. Term Paper on the Transgenic Approaches to Crop Improvement:
Many transgenic approaches to crop improvement arise from a lack of suitable conventional approaches to dealing with a particular agronomic problem or need. For many pests and pathogens which seriously limit agricultural productivity, transgenic approaches may provide new options where current options are lacking in their efficacy or existence.
Transgenic approaches can therefore be of use for a broad range of crops and areas where there are limited options available through conventional breeding e.g. nuclear male sterility, improved heterosis breeding, reducing toxic compounds, herbicide tolerance, generating novel resistance genes. Transgenic approaches have considerably broadened the range of gene-pools which are now accessible for crop improvement purposes.
Generalizations regarding the utility of biotechnologies as a generic category to different groups of farmers are usually not informative. For instance, from a public funding and regulatory (biosafety) perspective it is important to consider that not all biotechnologies generate transgenic or so called ‘genetically modified’ organisms (GMOs).
Modern biotechnologies such as molecular genetic mapping, marker assisted breeding and plant tissue culture are also highly useful technologies which can be applied within any particular crop’s gene pool to generate improved varieties which are not transgenic and hence outside the onerous restrictions of current biosafety legislation.
Conventional plant breeding has been extremely successful and increased financial support for plant breeding will be necessary if plant breeding is to both maintain and improve crop yields.
However, there are some limitations inherent in conventional plant breeding such as lack of practical access to useful germplasm due to sexual incompatibility barriers or undesirable linkage block and concomitant time lags in incorporating useful genes into existing varieties.
For instance, the application of useful gene transfer from microorganisms through genetic engineering techniques range from the introduction of vaccine antigen genes to aluminum tolerance genes to food plants. Isolated plant genes can now be usefully transferred between sexually incompatible crop plant species.
In the context of ongoing debates regarding transgenic crops, public funding agencies should not forget that modern biotechnologies such as plant tissue culture, molecular genetic mapping and marker assisted selection could still have a major impact on any conventional crop improvement approaches which decide to limit themselves to the genetic variation accessible within the primary to secondary gene-pools.
2. Term Paper on Biosafety and Transgenic Crops:
Biosafety assessment requires that risks, benefits and needs be given a balanced assessment in relation to transgenic organisms. Many opponents of plant biotechnology cite biosafety as the key risk based issue for the more stringent regulation of transgenic plants.
At one end of the extreme, environmental groups are now calling for a moratorium in some European countries on the planting of ‘genetically modified foods’. The other end of the extreme would be no regulations regarding transgenic organisms. Much controversy and public scaremongering has been generated by anti-biotechnology groups over the ‘safety’ of transgenic plants in relation to their perceived negative impacts on human health or the environment.
A new development has been that many of the anti- biotechnology groups have conceded that there are benefits to be had from the application of genetic engineering for addressing human medical problems.
However, it is the application of genetic engineering to agriculture that is now the key focus of attention of the anti-biotechnology interest groups. Indeed, civil society perceptions of agricultural biotechnologies in many countries are now distorted because of highly polarized lobbyist campaigns between the biotechnology industries on the one hand and anti-biotechnology groups on the other.
The independent presence of public sector agricultural biotechnologists and scientists has often been lacking from this ongoing polarized debate. Similarly, many membership based organizations which are more broadly representative of civil society such as trade unions, producers organizations and farmers organizations have also not been involved in these debates.
Switzerland is unique in having conducted a referendum to democratically assess public opinion regarding a number of genetic engineering issues. On June 7 1998 40% of the Swiss population voted in a referendum which called for a moratorium on the cultivation of genetically modified crops, bans on research on transgenic animals and on patenting of genetically modified organisms.
3. Term Paper on Biosafety Regulations and Equitable Access:
The socio, economic cost of non-access to some transgenic crops which may be of utility to farmers is rarely factored into risk-assessment procedures. Assessment of the immediate needs of different groups of farmers and consumers could feasibly become an integral component of biosafety risk assessment procedures, where costs and benefits could be seen in more social, rather than solely environmental terms exported from countries where food surpluses are normality.
The issue of who decides what level of risk farmers/consumers should be exposed to be also an important consideration for any countries development of biosafety regulations. This is an area where promoting the greater participation of organizations who actually represent the needs of different groups of farmers and/or consumers could be most appropriate.
Many of the most vocal environmentalist or consumer organizations may not actually be very representative of farmers or consumer’s needs. Membership based NGOs may provide a better reflection of farmers and consumer views than single interest lobbyist NGOs.
The absence of a functional biosafety review system may negatively affects the local development and importation of new biotechnology products, and therefore farmers’ access to potentially useful germplasm and technologies.
On the other hand, a very stringent biosafety review system can also delay or prevent farmers’ access. Indeed, the cost of a regulatory system for biosafety within any one country is an important factor which has implications for determining which farmers will ultimately have access to biotechnology products.
High regulatory costs will also have an effect on what transgenic traits are ultimately to reach farmers and will further bias research towards wide rather than specific adaptation. High regulatory costs will select for only those traits which represent the greatest commercial gain to the developer of the variety.
Such regulatory costs can be high. In the USA it can cost US$1 million to get a plant biotechnology product through the regulatory system. If such expensive regulatory systems are used in developing countries the cost will either bias all transgenic research towards meeting the needs of the wealthier sectors of society or plant biotechnology will remain primarily at the research stage.
Also, over stringent biosafety regulations are likely to disproportionately benefit larger companies over smaller companies or public sector bodies by acting as significant ‘barriers to entry’ to certain markets. The higher the regulatory hurdles the higher the chance that competition will be stifled between companies and that any benefits of biotechnologies will not reach poorer farmers.
For example, efforts by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate some transgenic crop varieties as ‘pesticidal plants’ were opposed by 11 scientific societies representing 80,000 biologists and food professionals. Interestingly, an alliance between the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and anti-biotechnology groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund were in favour of such types of regulation for differing reasons.
In determining whether low income farmers will have equitable access to certain types of transgenic crops, is of relevance therefore that FAO has recently indicated that any LMO that can be considered a pest of plants falls within the scope of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and will be subject to the provisions of the Convention.
Indeed, the broader issue of whether future or anticipated socio-economic impacts of biotechnologies should be considered under the draft Biosafety protocol to the CBD is also currently a matter of debate. Many conventionally bred crops are by any biological definition transgenic as they contain genes or segments of chromosomes from totally different crop species.
For instance most of the bread wheat currently under cultivation contains a large segment of a rye chromosome. Triticale is a conventionally bred transgenic crop containing full copies of both the rye and wheat genomes that was developed 60 years ago and is now grown on more than a million hectares in Canada, Mexico and eastern Europe.
Similarly most of not all crop varieties of sugarcane, tomato, potato, rice, maize, oat, sugar-beet, black currant, plum and many other highly bred crops contain genes or chromosome segments derived from different wild relative species.
Wide crossing and embryo rescue technologies have been used by breeders for longer than genetic transformation as a means of transferring useful genes across plant species barriers. In a biological sense at least the inter species genetic modification of foods is not inherently new.
In the context of biotechnology risk assessment, there is a widely held scientific consensus that risk is primarily a function of the characteristics of a product (whether it is a purified chemical or a living organism to be field tested) and is not per se a function of the method of genetic modification.
For instance, the US National Academy of Sciences concluded that assessment of the risks of introducing recombinant DNA engineered organisms into the environment should be based on the nature of the organism and the environment into which the organism is introduced and not on the method by which it was produced.
However, the current legal definitions of GMOs upon which most biosafety legislation is being constructed are largely ‘process’ rather than ‘product’ based in order to suggest that there is some fundamental distinction between the process of gene transfer resulting from sexual recombination and gene transfer resulting from genetic engineering.
However, the same plant gene might feasibly be transferred by either conventional plant breeding or by genetic transformation and while the products of both processes for gene transfer could in theory both be genetically or phenotypically identical, one would be labelled a GMO and the other would not.
For instance, there is little difference between mutagenesis-derived sulfonylurea or imidazolinone-resistant soybean, maize and oilseed rape and others crops with the same herbicide resistance genes transgenically introduced. Both transgenes and endogenous genes are, depending on their positions in the genome, likely to have similar rates or patterns of hybridization.
Indeed, if precision gene swapping or knockout mutation approaches through homologous genetic recombination are perfected for plants in the same manner that they have been for mammals it is likely that such approaches will be applied to crop improvement. In instances where exactly the same genotype could be produced by either conventional mutagenesis or by genetic engineering, the ‘process’ based definition of a GMO will be increasingly difficult to sustain by any biological definition at least.
Many of the biological phenomena which are often cited as unique biosafety issues for transgenic crops actually also occur in conventional plant breeding or other biological processes involving non-transgenic GMOs and in wild species.
These include gene-silencing, paramutation, segregation distortion, evolution of neo-virulent pest/pathogen, evolution of fungicide or herbicide tolerance, gene-flow to wild relatives, allergenicity, etc. It is sometimes contended that transgenes may display novel ’emergent properties’ when transferred to a novel genetic context.
However, conventional plant breeding and indeed agriculture itself also display emergent properties many of which have been beneficial to humanity. Standard plant breeding and selection procedures are equally applicable to the selection of the best transgenic lines from the range of lines generated through genetic transformation.
The yield benefits derived from dwarfing genes which were a major factor in the Green Revolution are an example of beneficial emergent properties from conventional breeding that were selected for by plant breeders.
At a global level the agricultural area which is currently planted with transgenic crops as developed by genetic engineering techniques is small relative to the areas under conventional crop varieties and landraces. However it is increasing as some farmers adopt transgenic varieties.
The total acreage of cultivated land in the world stands at over 1.4 billion hectares which is predominantly under conventional crop varieties. However for a few crops in a few countries (USA, China, Canada, and Argentina) there are significant areas planted to transgenic varieties.
In those countries where transgenic crops have been given regulatory approval, the proportion of crop area devoted to transgenic crops is increasing. In 1997 the global area under transgenic crops was 12.8 million hectares a 4.5 fold increase from the 2.8 million hectares planted in 1996.
In 1998 it is estimated that 30 million ha of transgenic crops were planted globally. The large increases in areas planted are currently limited to a few commercially important crops. For instance, transgenic soybean, maize, cotton and canola represented 85% of the global transgenic area in 1997, of which 75% was grown in North America.
4. Term Paper on the Improvement of Transgenic Technologies:
The ‘black box’ approaches to conventional breeding based upon the generation of genetic variation followed by selection for useful phenotypes is in some ways more imprecise than single gene transfer through genetic engineering approaches. In crosses between weedy wild relatives and their crops, tens of thousands of genes are typically recombined in the progeny plants the exact phenotypic results of which are extremely difficult to predict.
Radiation induced mutation breeding has been applied in plant breeding for decades with at least 20,000 know field tests of gamma radiation treated germplasm conducted in open field trials without any weedy or toxic mutants generated.
The FAO/IAEA Division has been instrumental in technology transfer of radiation breeding approaches to developing countries. In spite of any uncertainties inherent in conventional or mutation breeding, such plant breeding has served society well without warranting the level of restrictions that are currently being perceived as necessary for all transgenic crops.
The technologies to routinely make transgenic plants have only been in existence for over a decade or so which is of the same order of magnitude as the time required to conventionally breed a new plant variety. Much progress has been made regarding the technologies for generating transgenic crops through genetic transformation and these technologies are constantly being improved.
Although some crop varieties and species may be more difficult to transform than others (e.g. cassava, sorghum), few crop species are now considered to be ultimately un-transformable and a significant number of (monocot) cereal varieties can now be routinely transformed.
In recognition of biosafety related concern over the use of antibiotic selection markers in the process for generating transgenic plants, improved transformation systems have been developed which allow the generation of marker free transgenic plants.
Other biosafety related improvements include systems which can limit any potential pollen mediated gene flow from transgenic crops. Such systems could for instance be used to ensure that transgenic traits do not introgress into weedy wild relatives in situations where they might confer a selective advantage on the weed species in question.
5. Term Paper on Biodiversity and Plant Biotechnology:
Contrary to current opinion, there is currently no concrete evidence either way to suggest that transgenic crops or biotechnology per se would either decrease or increase biodiversity in agricultural or ‘natural’ ecosystems. Indeed, any tendency towards monocultures was well established before any transgenic varieties existed, and was also well in evidence before the era of the ‘Green Revolution’ varieties.
Within agricultural systems, plant biotechnology research could be applied to either increasing or decreasing genetic diversity depending on the research objectives. The recent advances in agricultural genomics, marker assisted breeding and transgenesis suggest that useful genetic diversity is actually becoming more accessible to crop researchers with the potential that aggregate increases in genetic diversity within crop gene-pools could now practically be achieved through increased use of genes from wild relatives and other species.
Plant micro-propagation can generate many clones of a particular variety in an analogous manner to vegetative propagation of root and tuber crops. While plant tissue culture and micro-propagation might possibly increase the propensity for monocultures such techniques may also be used to generate and multiply healthy plantlets of diseased locally adapted varieties which without such intervention are likely to be abandoned by farmers.
Reductions in broad spectrum pesticide applications through the substitution effects of resistance genes conferring specific resistances against agronomic pests are likely to contribute to an increase in beneficial insect biodiversity in agricultural systems. If growing food demand due to population pressure is to be met without requiring an expansion of agriculture into natural areas containing high levels of biodiversity this will require that yields in high potential areas be significantly increased.
FAO has estimated that two thirds of the growth in agricultural lands will have to occur through intensified use of lands already under cultivation. Plant biotechnology is likely to be one source of the potential yield increases required for high potential agricultural areas.
It is also worth considering that the wild relatives of crops, although a major genetic resource, are actually rarely used in the breeding of plant varieties, because of practical difficulties in using such exotic germplasm in breeding programmes. With modern biotechnological methods the use of such resources may increase.
Crop wild relatives only account for a small proportion of the world’s gene bank accessions and it is generally agreed that the in situ conservation of such resources is preferable to the many difficulties in maintaining them under long term ex situ conditions.
Any slight risk potential of mono- transgene gene flow contributing to the genetic erosion of sympatric wild relatives should be assessed relative to other factors which are known to contribute to genetic erosion of wild relatives.
Invasive exotic species are major and well known environmental and agricultural problems world-wide. In the context of biodiversity, the severe environmental and economic damage that can be caused by such ‘genetically unmodified’ exotic species introductions are likely to pose a much greater threat to biodiversity and ecosystems than transgenic crops per se.
Yet, trans-boundary movements of exotic species which on rare occasions result in the emergence of an invasive pest are unlikely under current phytosanitary legislation to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny or biosafety regulation as transgenic organisms.
Concern has been voiced about the perceived risks of transgene ‘escape’ to wild relatives of crops with the potential for creation of novel or herbicide tolerant weeds. For any crop, the risk of any such gene flow will differ considerably according to a range of factors such as whether the crop is cultivated in a region where there are sympatric weedy wild relatives.
Any such risk assessment has to be region or country specific and will differ widely according to the reproductive and agricultural harvesting biology of the crop in question. It will also be contingent on whether the transgene in question can confer any selective advantage on the wild relative, either within or outside of agricultural ecosystems.
In considering what would happen if gene flow of a transgene to weedy wild relatives there are many additional issues to be considered before any level of risk can be assessed. For instance any long term effects will be contingent on whether the transgene can confer a selective advantage and on the likelihood of persistence and spread of the transgene in weedy of natural populations.
A detailed risk analysis methodology for assessing the risks of gene flow from herbicide tolerant crops to their weedy wild relatives has concluded that no generalizations can be made as to whether genetic engineering would either exacerbate or alleviate herbicide resistance.
Nonetheless, it is obviously essential to limit any potential for herbicide resistant transgene flow into weedy wild relatives. However, any such risk assessment should be done based on what is known about weed biology and be assessed relative to the risks and problems encountered with conventional herbicide tolerant weeds. The evolution of herbicide tolerance in weeds which are related to crop plants is very well documented.
The more than 10 million hectares of herbicide resistant weeds that have appeared in the past 30 years all result from selection of naturally occurring herbicide resistant mutants among weed populations. This has occurred for legume weeds in soybean, Abutilon in cotton and bromes in wheat, and is still occurring for major crops such as rice and wheat.
In most instances, the use of genetic isolating mechanisms such as male sterility and/or maternally inherited expression systems will substantially reduce any risks of transgene flow into sympatric weedy wild relatives. However some scientists question whether such risk minimization strategies will be sufficient to appease those who are per se opposed to transgenic crops.
In general, any risks of transgenic crops to biodiversity should ideally be assessed relative to other non-transgenic related factors, such as urbanization, agriculture and land use changes, exotic plant introductions, conventional weeds etc. which are more likely to more drastically reduce the geographic ranges of useful crop wild relatives or biodiversity in general. Many risk assessment studies regarding GMOs fail to do comparative studies to assess each particular risk comparative to the levels of risk from other factors.
6. Term Paper on Human Health and Transgenic Foods:
There is currently no scientifically accepted evidence to suggest that transgenic crops per se are any more or less toxic or allergenic than their conventionally bred counterparts. Indeed, genetic engineering approaches and other research approaches are underway to develop ‘functional foods’ or “nutraceuticals” which would contain lower levels of allergens and toxins, or higher levels of beneficial compounds, than conventional foods.
There has been much misinformation circulated in the popular media regarding perceived dangers to human health from use of transgenic crops or other GMOs. The recent public hysteria generated in the UK regarding transgenic foods stemmed from a non-scientifically reviewed research report on feeding trials of rats with transgenic potatoes containing a lectin with known insecticidal properties.
In this case, while the researchers report was subjected to ‘political’ peer review it has not yet been subjected to peer review in scientific journals and hence all of the conflicting conclusions to date regarding the raw data are considered premature. Many naturally occurring plant proteins and compounds can be anti-nutrients, toxic or allergenic. Indeed a significant number of crop species are toxic if not cooked or prepared properly to reduce or inactivate such compounds.
In most instances, standard procedures for assessing toxicity (LD50) and allergenicity can equally be applied to conventional and transgenic varieties to identify those transgenics which are substantially equivalent to conventional varieties. Such standard testing procedures were sufficient to identify that a methionine-rich 2S albumin from the Brazil nut (Betholletia excelsa) was allergenic to some people and hence was not as good a candidate as a non-allergenic methionine rich sunflower seed albumin gene for gene transfer to improve the nutritional content of legumes.
Selectable marker genes are used in constructing transgenic plants containing an associated transgene of interest, but are usually not required once the transgenic plants are produced. Existing biosafety regulations have been stringent enough to disallow corn-borer tolerant maize in Europe because of the extremely low risk of antibiotic tolerance spreading in bacteria in the rumen of cattle.
Even though most selection markers in constructing transgenic are likely to pose little danger either to humans of the environment because of perceived consumer hysteria it is likely that future generations of final product transgenic plants will not contain selectable marker genes.
This is because a number of quite efficient systems have now been developed for the development of ‘marker free’ transgenic. More acceptable marker systems which are not based on antibiotic or herbicide resistance genes are also being developed. Hence it is possible that biosafety considerations regarding such genes may gradually become less of an issue as improved ‘marker free’ transformation systems become available.
Consumers have a definite right to information and hence choice regarding which foods they purchase or eat. However, consumer information is based on the premise that the information provided to the consumer is of utility to the consumer in making an informed choice. For instance, knowledge of the biological or species composition of foods will be of use to those who suffer from allergies to particular foods or compounds.
The USA requires labelling of transgenic foods that are substantially different from their unmodified counterparts, including foods that could contain a potentially allergenic compound such as a peanut protein or glutenins.
Indeed, it is questionable whether the label ‘genetically modified’ conveys any information of utility to the typical consumer in terms of making an informed choice based on what is currently known about transgenic food. Nonetheless, such labelling is increasingly perceived as necessary by both the biotechnology industry and some governments.
An increasing number of the OECD countries are implementing provisions that require the labelling of genetically modified foods. For instance, the European Union has recently approved two directives which state that labelling must be applied to novel foods and their ingredients produced through the process of genetic engineering.
Because of the commercial potential in diagnostic services for segregating transgenic and non- transgenic foodstuffs, major research efforts are now underway to develop such diagnostic methods.
Indeed, the labelling of transgenic foods and products is likely to be welcomed by some companies as a means of unequivocally capturing added value. Corporate strategy will require that any of the biotechnologically generated value added traits for food and feed, and even for industrial markets, will be stacked with a variety of input traits in a variety of combinations that will need to be segregated and identity-preserved to capture the enhanced value of the end products. This will lead to contract production and marketing systems for the resultant grains, oilseeds and their derivative products.
There are now differences between international trading blocs over requirements to label products developed using genetic engineering processes. While the USA does not require labelling of GMOs, the European Union and Japan, amongst others, have opted for labelling of food products or components produced by genetic engineering. It is likely that such requirements for GMO labelling will become a multilateral or bilateral trade negotiation issue over whether such labelling constitutes a trade barrier.
Indeed, because of consumer concern over transgenic foods in Europe there may be substitution effects generated in both directions regarding non-transgenic and transgenic foods.
For instance, countries which do not have access to technologies to produce transgenic crops and whose exports are perceived to be threatened with substitution may find that the export of labelled non-GMO derived products may be a short term strategy to maintain markets while they devise a means of diversifying their exports in the face of competition from GMO derived products.
7. Term Paper on Scientific and Policy Developments:
Since the advent of transgenic organisms there has been a vast body of scientific research undertaken on risk assessment regarding the use of different types of transgenic organisms. Scientific risk assessment procedures regarding transgenic organisms are now an active and specialized area of scientific research. UNIDO maintains a roster of scientists who have recognized expertise in biosafety related risk assessment regarding GMOs.
On a crop by crop basis, many studies have now been done of pollen dispersal of transgenic crops and gene transfer from transgenic crops to wild relatives. Such ‘transgene independent’ plant based studies have shown that the likelihood of gene-flow from the cultigen can be estimated for any particular plant species at any particular location.
Hence, while gene flow from transgenic potatoes to its wild relatives is virtually impossible in most of Europe it is more probable in the centers of diversity of the potato in the Andean region.
The scientific consensus emerging from the vast range of biosafety studies of transgenic plants is that each case should ideally be evaluated on a case -by case basis. Hence biosafety decisions might differ according to the particular type of transgene, crop, environment and end-use involved. Useful analysis tools for such evaluations can be the general concepts of ‘substantial equivalence’ and ‘familiarity’.
Risk assessment procedures can vary widely between countries. In some cases, the competent authorities who conduct the actual regulation find it difficult to agree on factors that might be considered in a risk assessment and what potential effects might be grounds for a refusal to approve release of a transgenic organism.
As a result there are instances where it is thought that regulators have been forced to erect their own normative standards and may in effect be making value judgements in formulating decisions on GMOs.
At the international policy level there are approximately 171 countries which are Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD requests Parties to consider a legally binding international Protocol for Biosafety, recognising the potential risks posed to biodiversity by living modified organisms (LMOs) resulting from biotechnology.
The proposed Biosafety Protocol was intended to specify obligations for international transfer of LMOs and set out means of risk assessment, risk management, advance informed agreement, technology transfer and capacity building regarding biosafety. The intergovernmental negotiations of the draft Biosafety protocol reached deadlock in Cartagena, Colombia in early 1999 and have now been postponed.
The WTO’s Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures is likely to be of increasing importance regarding explicit requirements for transparent, science- based risk assessment of material for import. In the case of beef hormones the USA alleged an infringement of the SPS by the EU and the subsequent WTO Dispute Panel finding stated that risk assessment should not involve social value judgements made by political bodies.
Upon appeal by the EU, the Appelate Body supported the Panel’s decision and stated further that the precautionary principle did not override the requirements of the SPS Agreement to take into account relevant scientific evidence. In the context of labelling of transgenic foods the WHO/FAO Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is likely to be of increasing international importance. Its current membership is countries.
Since 1962, the Codex Alimentarius Commission has been responsible for developing standards, guidelines and other recommendations on the quality and safety of food to protect the health of consumers and to ensure fair practices in food trade.
Codex standards, guidelines and recommendations are based on current scientific knowledge including assessments of risk to human health. The risk assessments are carried out by FAO/WHO expert panels of independent scientists selected on a world-wide basis.
Codex standards, guidelines and other recommendations are not binding on Member States, but are a point of reference in international law. The CAC is presently developing Recommendations for the Labelling of Foods Obtained through Biotechnology. The CAC is also considering the development of a general standard which would apply basic food safety and food control disciplines to foods which are derived from biotechnology.
The advice of prior FAO/WHO expert consultations on biotechnology and food safety will be used as guidance for the conditions required for foods prepared from biotechnology.
The FAO states that foremost among these are consideration of potential allergenicity, possible gene transfer from LMOs, pathogenicity deriving from the organism used, nutritional considerations and labelling. At the national level many countries are now establishing national biosafety committees and biosafety regulations regarding the use of GMOs.
There are also initiatives to harmonise biosafety regulations at the regional level. For instance, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation recently developed an agreement between seven countries on germplasm exchange and the future development of biosafety regulations.
The Biosafety Information Network and Advisory Service (BINAS) is a service of UNIDO which monitors global developments in regulatory issues in biotechnology. The BINAS maintains an on line database of the state of development of national biosafety legislation world-wide.
It would seem that current debates regarding biosafety and GMOs are unlikely to be easily resolvable in the near term, due to the increasingly entrenched nature of the debate. In Europe, surveys have shown that large percentages of the general public may believe that the view of environmental and consumer organizations on biotechnology are more trustworthy and believable than politicians, industry or universities.
In such contexts, the claims and counter-claims surrounding current public and policy debate make it increasingly difficult for both policy makers and the public to distinguish scientific information from either inaccurate or mis-information regarding biosafety risks.