A report released ten years after the first genetically modified crops were introduced sets forth principles and tools that nations can use as they wrestle to develop effective agricultural biotechnology policy. The report, Integrating Socio-Economic Considerations into Biosafety Decisions: The Role of Public Participation, suggests that social and economic concerns must be part of a comprehensive approach to regulate the introduction of agricultural biotechnology crops.

The report emphasizes the importance of public participation by representative segments of society in determining how to use new technologies such as genetically modified crops. “Effective public participation mechanisms are one way to develop policy that better serves the needs of people affected by this technology,” said Lindsey Fransen, the report's lead author.

Although international agreements such as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety have sought to address social and economic concerns in biosafety decisions, the report describes that this is often not the case.

“The Biosafety Protocol explicitly mentions that countries may take socio-economic considerations into account in decisions about biotechnology, but governments are left without guidance on how to do so,” said Fransen. “Our report documents that by not having clear regulations to address socio-economic issues, countries run the risk of making arbitrary, non-transparent decisions, sparking citizen concern and even opposition.”

To accommodate socio-economic concerns in better biotechnology policy, the report contains recommendations for the scientific research community, industry, the agricultural sector, governments, and civil groups.

The report recommends that once the benefits and the costs of biotechnologies are clarified, and when representative groups can participate in the process, nations can make biotechnology policy that maximizes the benefits to society, while minimizing the costs.

Decisions to use genetically modified crops by the governments of the Philippines and Indonesia are examined as case studies in the report. In the Philippines, for example, the government approved the use of genetically modified corn after a long process of scientific and public scrutiny based on regulations drawn from the Cartagena Protocol. Many farmers were in favor of using the modified corn for its yield increases of 25 to 60 percent.

However, the regulatory process lacked adequate transparency and failed to consider socio-economic concerns in the decision-making process. As a result, national and local groups organized a protest and, eventually, a hunger strike. The controversy continues to this day. The report concludes that sound socio-economic assessments would have been helpful in addressing these issues, thus avoiding disruptions.

Integrating Socio-Economic Considerations into Biosafety Decisions: The Role of Public Participation is a report by the World Resources Institute's Institutions and Governance Program.

The full report can be accessed from the WRI Web site at: http://pubs.wri.org/pubs_description.cfm?PubID=4033

Related publications and papers:

• 2005. Integrating Socio-economic Considerations into Biosafety Decisions: The role of public participation . This paper focuses on the social and economic implications of modern agricultural biotechnology and its products and taking these implications into account in decision-making.

Source: World Resources Institute