GM Crops: Regulation, Approval, and Intellectual Property Rights
Facts and Terms from "Putting GM Technologies to Work: Public Research Pipelines in Selected African Countries," African Journal of Biotechnology, November 2004, by Idah Sithole-Niang, Professor, University of Zimbabwe;
Joel I. Cohen, IFPRI Senior Research Fellow; and Patricia Zambrano, IFPRI Research Analyst (unless other sources cited)
- Investment in food biotechnology has been largely targeted to research infrastructure and scientific capacity building without foreseeing the need to meet regulatory requirements.
- Locally developed GM crops, often tailored to local needs, pose unique challenges for public research institutes seeking regulatory approval. As a result, GM crops tend to remain in development and out of the hands of farmers.
- Developing countries have made limited gains in compiling regulatory data due to lack of experience or resources and capacity. Seventy percent of the GM crops produced under the public research programs in this study remain in labs/greenhouses, and twenty-eight percent are in confined field testing.
- Of the four countries surveyed in this research, no public biotech crops have been approved for commercial release.
- The private sector could play a key role for specific GM crops, given their experience in commercial development and regulatory compliance. Only 22 percent of all GM technologies in this study are being developed under public-private partnerships.