As countries around the world continue to move towards achieving their Sustainable Development Goals, agricultural biotechnology, including genome editing, has become an increasingly critical tool to address food security and environment targets.
Over the past year, members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), such as the United States and Argentina have been leading an important effort to educate delegates on the value of innovative agricultural technology and the need for global, science-based, and risk-appropriate regulatory systems to enable this technology.
BIO has also been actively engaging with the WTO and key stakeholders to discuss the benefits of the technology and need for legal frameworks that support innovation and trade.
Matt O’Mara, BIO’s Vice President of International Affairs, recently traveled to Geneva with representatives from the global seed industry, including the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), to have dialogues with a range of officials on the importance of genome editing to agriculture and exchange ideas with governments on how to support the use of this technology.
Additionally, BIO and ASTA have partnered to launch Innovature.com to drive conversations about innovations, such as gene editing, in food and agriculture.
Having science-based, risk-appropriate regulatory systems in place globally is an essential first step towards enabling better understanding and adoption of this transformative technology.
Recently, the delegations of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, the United States, and Uruguay circulated an international statement on applications of precision agricultural biotechnology to fellow members of the WTO.
BIO supports the objectives outlined in this statement and will continue to advocate for international adoption of rules and regulations to better enable the advancement of innovative agricultural biotechnology solutions.
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