eCommons will become read-only at noon on May 26 for an infrastructure update. Submissions will not be accepted at this time. We anticipate that this update will be completed by June 2 at 5 p.m.
Please contact us at ecommons-admin@cornell.edu if you have questions or concerns.
NABC Report 06: Agricultural Biotechnology & the Public Good
Browse by
Published 1994 by NABC.
On May 18, 1994, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first genetically engineered food product for commercial sale and dozens of other products are in the pipeline promising to provide a vast array of new agricultural products. But is this development in the best interest of the public? NABC 6 was the first NABC meeting to specifically address the global nature of agriculture. The workshops determined eight comprehensive key issues ranging from ownership and access to germplasm to the need for more unified biosafety standards.
Biotechnology can have enormous positive impact on public good, but policy issues are critical in determining who benefits from technology transfer on the national and global level. However, we need to see biotechnology as a point on a continuum of technologies and make sure that it does not replace other valid technologies and thus limit the tools available to producers and consumers.
Certain members of the audience were concerned about negative effects of agricultural biotechnology on human health and the environment, and doubted whether biotechnology can bring universal benefit to developing countries. However, feeding the growing world population using current agricultural practices, the amount of land used for agriculture would have to be expanded from a land mass about the size of South America to that of Eurasia. Increasing agricultural productivity per acre is vital and can be aided by new products developed through agricultural biotechnology. However, public acceptance remains uncertain. Communication and education are important in placing biotechnology solidly on the continuum of technologies and remove the stigma of “Frankenfood”. The current trend of removing funding for public research and handing it over to the private sector has the potential of putting possibly lucrative developments squarely in the hands of corporations rather than in those of the public – a type of “biopiracy” that forces producers, especially in developing countries, to pay for patented life forms previously free for them to use.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Recent Submissions
-
Workshop report on environmental stewardship and agricultural biotechnology
(NABC, 1994)Workshop report and recommendations -
Public policy, biotechnology and the structure of agriculture
(NABC, 1994)Numerous perspectives exist on the relationship between emerging biotechnology innovations and the structure of agriculture emphasize what can be done to influence that relationship. The author argues that the historic ... -
Workshop on setting the agricultural biotechnology agenda
(NABC, 1994)Workshop report and recommendations -
Genetic engineering (“Biotech”): use of science gone wrong
(NABC, 1994)Even if genetic engineering does not lead to unforeseen mutations and runaway alien varieties, the disruptions to balances in nature are predictable— a genetic characteristic always results in an end product or products ... -
Agriculture in the 1990s and beyond
(NABC, 1994)Industrialization presents many opportunities and challenges to America’s farmers. We need to capitalize on those that offer the most promise and are also alert to coming Farmers see themselves as society’s creators and ... -
Workshop report on biotechnology and the structure of agriculture
(NABC, 1994)Workshop report and recommendations -
Biotechnology and the environment
(NABC, 1994)Much of the debate about biotechnology and the environment is not so much about the nature and magnitude of the risk, but rather, who should bear the costs if a course of action proves to be in error. Should biotechnology ... -
Global interdependence and the private sector
(NABC, 1994)Developing countries need biotechnology products and must pay for what is used. At the same time developing countries take out patents on their own genetic materials, largely unimproved germplasm. However, we do not presently ... -
How the agenda is set
(NABC, 1994)The advent of biotechnology has hastened the day of reckoning by accentuating the linkages among farming practices, the natural resource base, food processing, and consumption requirements and desires. Given the complexity ... -
Moving beyond dialogue
(NABC, 1994)The time has come for the biotechnology industry to explore the principles and processes of participatory decision-making, and to implement concrete decision-making opportunities involving all elements of the agricultural ...
RSS 1.0