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| Author: | David G. Victor, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Science and Technology |
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| Publisher: | Council on Foreign Relations Press |
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Release Date: November 2001
The world's agricultural system stands at the shores of a technological Rubicon. On the near side, where most farmers toil today, new strains of crops are still largely the product of conventional hit-or-miss breeding. On the distant side, where the advance guard of farmers and seed companies already operates, a revolution in biotechnology awaits, in which scientists can control breeding and engineer new crops by splicing in genes from species near and far.
Here we offer a strategy for managing this new technology. For advocates of genetic engineering technology, a coherent long-term strategy is badly needed as a guide for private investors and public policy, to ensure that today's squabbles do not derail the technology from achieving its ultimate potential. Public support for crop engineering will swell as the benefits become apparent, just as farmers have embraced engineered crops that deliver tangible benefits such as lower production costs. Indeed, the same consumers who oppose crop biotechnology have embraced biotechnology in other areas, such as in the production of synthetic insulin and other pharmaceuticals. But missteps today will make it hard open markets for these products in the future.
In particular, we identify four areas of needed reform. First, although some new regulatory institutions will be needed, developing countries desperately need help in implementing the good regulatory rules that they have already put on the books. Second, a new scheme is needed to provide free access to intellectual property that could benefit low-income farmers while protecting intellectual property for wealthier customers than can afford the technology. Third, industrialized and middle-income developing countries must reaffirm their investments in crop breeding and farmer extension programs. Fourth, efforts are needed - in the US and Europe especially - to contain the conflicts over engineered food and keep them from spreading through trade institutions. Such containment is needed not only in the WTO but also in ancillary institutions such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the UN's body for setting food safety standards.
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