Food Biotechnology

Government Response

Different legal systems have had a range of responses, with most variations concerning the labeling and traceability requirements for GM food products. The European Union (EU) and Japan, for instance, require labeling and traceability. In 2006, however, the World Trade Organization (WTO) struck down Europe's moratorium on GM food, but the EU Commission still has a stringent food safety process. Regulatory agencies in the United States have not determined that these special requirements are necessary. GM crop technology is now accepted in more than twenty countries, including China and India.

According to a 2006 report released by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, state legislatures in the United States during 2005 increasingly attempted to preempt local and county initiatives mostly aimed at limiting or prohibiting GM seeds and crops. This legislation represents one of the largest categories of bills introduced in 2005. The Pew Initiative analysis found that states continue to grapple with potential conflicts among farmers who use GM crop technologies and those using conventional or organic production approaches. Bills that focused on the coexistence of different food production systems and that attempted to address concerns about liability and contractual agreements constituted about one-fifth of the proposals introduced. Nevertheless, legislative support for these new technologies appears strong because bills furthering agricultural biotechnology combined with preemption bills represented almost two-thirds of adopted statutes.

The Science

There are three main applications of food biotechnologies. First is the genetic modification of microbes, which companies use, for instance, in the production process for cheese. Second is the development of herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant crop varieties for commercial agriculture production. There are almost 100 million hectares (386,000 square miles) in GM crops in 2006. Third is the more recent innovation of producing vaccine proteins in plants, more commonly known as plant-made pharmaceuticals.

Application of the first two technologies has had a limited role in food biotechnology. Producers use genetically modified food enzymes and microbes in production processes that one cannot call true food biotechnology from a consumption perspective. Similarly, commercial development of GM herbicide-tolerant and insectresistant crops, which involve input trait technologies, have a minimal relationship to final food products. Most of these crops go into the market for animal feed. Producers use GM corn and soy as ingredients in many processed food products, but rarely as the lead ingredient. The most important developments have been in plant-made pharmaceuticals.

Plant-made pharmaceuticals represent the newest application in food biotechnology. This innovation involves the genetic modification of proteins within fruits and vegetables to allow for the delivery of oral vaccines to assist in the prevention of some forms of disease. This aspect of food biotechnology has great potential for assisting with the prevention of diseases such as malaria and hepatitis in developing countries. Estimates from the pharmaceutical industry suggest that as little as 0.6 hectare (1.5 acres) of pharmaceutical crop production could satisfy the therapeutic needs of 10,000 patients. This biotechnology has not yet particularly drawn the attention of national legal systems. Administrative agencies that otherwise regulate drugs will likely be the first line of defense.

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