Consumer transparency in the production chain for plant varieties produced using new genomic techniques

Plants edited with new genomic techniques (NGTs) currently fall under the Genetically Modified Organisms Directive (2001/18/EC) in the European Union. In the proposal of the European Commission, NGT plants are partially exempted from the regulations of this directive. The proposal makes a distinction between two categories of NGT plants: NGT-1 and NGT-2. NGT-1 category plants are considered equal to plants obtained through conventional breeding methods. These plants will not be labelled for the consumer, although they will be labelled as seeds. NGT-2 category plants may be labelled with additional information as a positive incentive. Labelling of seeds of varieties made with gene editing, but not the products, would mean that most steps in the production chain are transparent, but not the last step towards consumers. The "right to know" and increasing knowledge of gene-edited food is a common theme in food labelling towards consumers. Here, we describe current labelling regimes and registers and how these may be applied to provide transparency on gene-edited products to consumers. Furthermore, we also look into consumer studies, which indicate a greater acceptance of gene-edited food among consumers, especially when additional benefits such as sustainability are mentioned.

A point-of-care testing platform for on-site identification of genetically modified crops

Genetically modified (GM) food is still highly controversial nowadays. Due to the disparate policies and attitudes worldwide, demands for a rapid, cost-effective and user-friendly GM crop identification method are increasingly significant for import administration, market supervision, etc. However, as the most-recognized methods, nucleic acid-based identification approaches require bulky instruments, long turn-around times and trained personnel, which are only suitable in laboratories. To fulfil the urgent needs of on-site testing, we develop a point-of-care testing platform that is able to identify 12 types of GM crops in less than 40 minutes without using laboratory settings. Our system integrates sample pre-treatment modules in a microfluidic chip, performs DNA amplification via a battery-powered portable kit, and presents results via eye-recognized colorimetric change. A paraffin-based reflow method and a slip plate-based fluid switch are developed to encapsulate and release amplification primers in individual microwells on demand, thus enabling identification of varied targets simultaneously. Our system offers an efficient, affordable and convenient tool for GM crop identification, thus it will not only benefit customs and market administration bureaus, but also satisfy demands of numerous consumers.

Parameters, practices, and preferences for regulatory review of emerging biotechnology products in food and agriculture

This paper evaluates the U.S. regulatory review of three emerging biotechnology products according to parameters, practices, and endpoints of assessments that are important to stakeholders and publics. First, we present a summary of the literature on variables that are important to non-expert publics in governing biotech products, including ethical, social, policy process, and risk and benefit parameters. Second, we draw from our USDA-funded project results that surveyed stakeholders with subject matter expertise about their attitudes towards important risk, benefit, sustainability, and societal impact parameters for assessing novel agrifood technologies, including biotech. Third, we evaluate the regulatory assessments of three food and agricultural biotechnology case studies that have been reviewed under U.S. regulatory agencies and laws of the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology, including gene-edited soybeans, beef cattle, and mustard greens. Evaluation of the regulatory review process was based on parameters identified in steps 1 and 2 which were deemed important to both publics and stakeholders. Based on this review, we then propose several policy options for U.S. federal agencies to strengthen their oversight processes to better align with a broader range of parameters to support sustainable agrifood products that rely on novel technologies. These policy options include 1) those that would not require new institutions or legal foundations (such as conducting Environmental Impact Statements and/or requiring a minimal level of safety data), 2) those that would require a novel institutional or cross-institutional framework (such as developing a publicly-available website and/or performing holistic sustainability assessments), and 3) those that would require the agencies to have additional legal authorities (such as requiring agencies to review biotech products according to a minimal set of health, environmental, and socio-economic parameters). Overall, the results of this analysis will be important for guiding policy practice and formulation in the regulatory assessment of emerging biotechnology products that challenge existing legal and institutional frameworks.

Methods of crop improvement and applications towards fortifying food security

Agriculture has supported human life from the beginning of civilization, despite a plethora of biotic (pests, pathogens) and abiotic (drought, cold) stressors being exerted on the global food demand. In the past 50 years, the enhanced understanding of cellular and molecular mechanisms in plants has led to novel innovations in biotechnology, resulting in the introduction of desired genes/traits through plant genetic engineering. Targeted genome editing technologies such as Zinc-Finger Nucleases (ZFNs), Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs), and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) have emerged as powerful tools for crop improvement. This new CRISPR technology is proving to be an efficient and straightforward process with low cost. It possesses applicability across most plant species, targets multiple genes, and is being used to engineer plant metabolic pathways to create resistance to pathogens and abiotic stressors. These novel genome editing (GE) technologies are poised to meet the UN's sustainable development goals of "zero hunger" and "good human health and wellbeing." These technologies could be more efficient in developing transgenic crops and aid in speeding up the regulatory approvals and risk assessments conducted by the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Informing environmental health and risk priorities through local outreach and extension

Our society is currently facing an unprecedented number of environmental and societal challenges. Stakeholder and community engagement can help identify priority issues and needs at local levels. One approach to engage stakeholders and communities in the contexts of environmental, health, and societal challenges is to leverage outreach and extension programs. Within this context, and to help identify priority issues to focus subsequent research and extension programs in North Carolina (NC), a survey was conducted with extension agents to identify priority issues as they relate to environmental health and risks and related needs. Based on responses from 66 study participants that represented half of the 100 NC counties, we found that Water pollution, Flooding, Natural resources management, and Engaging stakeholders were top priority issues across all environmental health and risk topics. Participants also identified that practices of Engaging stakeholders as well as Assessing, Managing, and Communicating risks were increasingly important. Participants indicated they needed a moderate-to-significant amount of guidance across a range of areas related to assessing, managing, communicating, and making decisions regarding environmental health and risk topics, as well as engaging with local communities. Outcomes from this work can not only help inform subsequent research and outreach efforts at local scales, but this work demonstrates a simple, low-cost approach to elicit perspectives and priorities can be leveraged in other states and regions with established stakeholder and community outreach programs more broadly.

Lessons for a SECURE Future: Evaluating Diversity in Crop Biotechnology Across Regulatory Regimes

Regulation of next-generation crops in the United States under the newly implemented “SECURE” rule promises to diversify innovation in agricultural biotechnology. Specifically, SECURE promises to expand the number of products eligible for regulatory exemption, which proponents theorize will increase the variety of traits, genes, organisms, and developers involved in developing crop biotechnology. However, few data-driven studies have looked back at the history of crop biotechnology to understand how specific regulatory pathways have affected diversity in crop biotechnology and how those patterns might change over time. In this article, we draw upon 30 years of regulatory submission data to 1) understand historical diversification trends across the landscape and history of past crop biotechnology regulatory pathways and 2) forecast how the new SECURE regulations might affect future diversification trends. Our goal is to apply an empirical approach to exploring the relationship between regulation and diversity in crop biotechnology and provide a basis for future data-driven analysis of regulatory outcomes. Based on our analysis, we suggest that diversity in crop biotechnology does not follow a single trajectory dictated by the shifts in regulation, and outcomes of SECURE might be more varied and restrictive despite the revamped exemption categories. In addition, the concept of confidential business information and its relationship to past and future biotechnology regulation is reviewed in light of our analysis.

Should Gene Editing Be Used to Develop Crops for Continuous-Living-Cover Agriculture? A Multi-Sector Stakeholder Assessment Using a Cooperative Governance Approach

Continuous-living-cover (CLC) agriculture integrates multiple crops to create diversified agroecosystems in which soils are covered by living plants across time and space continuously. CLC agriculture can greatly improve production of many different ecosystem services from agroecosystems, including climate adaptation and mitigation. To go to scale, CLC agriculture requires crops that not only provide continuous living cover but are viable in economic and social terms. At present, lack of such viable crops is strongly limiting the scaling of CLC agriculture. Gene editing (GE) might provide a powerful tool for developing the crops needed to expand CLC agriculture to scale. To assess this possibility, a broad multi-sector deliberative group considered the merits of GE-relative to alternative plant-breeding methods-as means for improving crops for CLC agriculture. The group included many of the sectors whose support is necessary to scaling agricultural innovations, including actors involved in markets, finance, policy, and R&D. In this article, we report findings from interviews and deliberative workshops. Many in the group were enthusiastic about prospects for applications of GE to develop crops for CLC agriculture, relative to alternative plant-breeding options. However, the group noted many issues, risks, and contingencies, all of which are likely to require responsive and adaptive management. Conversely, if these issues, risks, and contingencies cannot be managed, it appears unlikely that a strong multi-sector base of support can be sustained for such applications, limiting their scaling. Emerging methods for responsible innovation and scaling have potential to manage these issues, risks, and contingencies; we propose that outcomes from GE crops for CLC agriculture are likely to be much improved if these emerging methods are used to govern such projects. However, both GE of CLC crops and responsible innovation and scaling are unrefined innovations. Therefore, we suggest that the best pathway for exploring GE of CLC crops is to intentionally couple implementation and refinement of both kinds of innovations. More broadly, we argue that such pilot projects are urgently needed to navigate intensifying grand challenges around food and agriculture, which are likely to create intense pressures to develop genetically-engineered agricultural products and equally intense social conflict.

Deficits of Public Deliberation in U.S. Oversight for Gene Edited Organisms

Environmental releases of gene edited (GEdOs) and gene drive organisms (GDOs) will likely occur under conditions of high uncertainty and in complex socioecological systems. Therefore, public deliberation is especially important to account for diverse interpretations of safety, risks, and benefits; to draw on experiential and public wisdom in areas of proposed release; to ameliorate dangers of technological optimism; and to increase the public legitimacy of decisions. Yet there is a "democratic deficit" in the United States' oversight system for GEdOs and GDOs, as unconflicted experts, publics, and skeptical stakeholders are most often excluded from decision-making and unavailable to critically examine potential risks and benefits or raise broader concerns about socioeconomic or cultural impacts. This article argues for the need to open up decision-making for GEdOs and GDOs, discusses the challenges for doing so within the current oversight framework, and finally, proposes institutional, policy, and attitudinal changes that are likely important for overcoming barriers to public deliberation.

(Broken) Promises of Sustainable Food and Agriculture through New Biotechnologies: The CRISPR Case

In recent years, the development of diverse CRISPR-based technologies has revolutionized genome manipulation and enabled a broad scientific community in industry, academia, and beyond to redefine research and development for biotechnology products encompassing food, agriculture, and medicine. CRISPR-based genome editing affords tremendous opportunities in agriculture for the breeding of crops and livestock across the food supply chain that could benefit larger portions of the population compared to CRISPR applications in medicine, for example by helping to feed a growing global population, reach sustainability goals, and possibly mitigate the effects of climate change. These promises come alongside concerns of risks and adverse impacts associated with CRISPR-based genome editing and concerns that governance systems that are ill equipped or not well suited to evaluate these risks. The international community will continue to gather, in multiple venues, in the coming years to discuss these concerns. At the same time, responsible research and innovation paradigms also promise to evaluate the risks and benefits better while incorporating broad stakeholder engagement across the research and development process. The CRISPR community therefore must actively engage with these international deliberations, society, and national governance systems that have promised to build better agricultural systems and provide better food products to achieve equitable outcomes while protecting the environment. Without this active engagement, the promises discussed in this paper are sure to be broken.