Agricultural Policy

Overview 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.

Overview This paper was prepared for a workshop on trans-Atlantic differences in GMO regulation sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations. It draws in part on an unpublished paper, "Apples and Oranges: Comparing the Regulation of Genetically Modified Food in Europe and the United States," co-authored with Diahanna Lynch.

Read an excerpt of "Trade, Science, and Genetically Modified Foods." Overview The scientific breakthrough of genetically modified (GM) food has generated enormous political controversy while delivering few benefits to consumers to date. The next generation of GM foods could offer much larger benefits, but today's debate has deterred investment and led to policies unguided by a long-term vision. Our purpose is to help create a more strategic policy on GM foods in the U.S. Its main product will be a major article that (a) articulates why the next generation of GM foods is a vitally important innovation, and (b) details policies for managing the environmental, health, trade, research and investment issues that arise in the GM food debate. Through a series of meetings in the U.S., along with efforts to catalyze a similar set of meetings in Europe, we will focus on the need for the specifics of a sensible long-term strategy.