April 16, 2010

Source: Crop Biotech Update

There is no doubt that the entire agriculture sector is giving immense effort to improve the food situation world-wide. Billions of dollars are invested on genetic engineering (GE) of various crops. However, only a small number of transgenic crops are available in the market today. Caius M. Rommens of J.R. Simplot Company in the USA tried to explain this lapse between research and development of GE crops. He wrote a review enititled Barriers and Paths to Market for Genetically Engineered Crops published in Plant Biotechnology Journal. The barriers he discussed are as follows:

• trait efficacy in the field
• critical product concepts
• freedom-to-operate
• industry support
• identity preservation
• regulatory approval
• consumer acceptance

He also presented promising solutions to overcome the said obstacles. For instance, he suggests creating affirmative consumer perceptions and providing comprehensible evidences of the transgenic crops' advantages to gain positive retail and consumer acceptance.

The complete review is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123200391/HTMLSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0.
 

Website: http://www.isaaa.org/kc/

Published: April 16, 2010