The Board of Trustees of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) last week approved a set of Guiding Principles to govern IPGRI’s work on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

“These Guiding Principles are simple and succinct, and they address all the important policy issues,” said Tony Gregson, who chairs IPGRI’s Board. “The trustees are very pleased with them.”

The Board was holding its 26th meeting in Cairo at the invitation of Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation.

The Guiding Principles take note of a position statement adopted by the centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

“The Guiding Principles just adopted will enable IPGRI to focus its efforts in the areas where it can do most good, such as the production of global public goods and working with partners to study gene flow from GMOs,” said Emile Frison, IPGRI’s Director General. “They also codify our desire to observe the strict safety regimes and to ensure that socio-economic effects are taken fully into account in our work."

The Guiding Principles are reproduced below and can also be found here.

IPGRI Guiding Principles for Genetically Modified Organisms

The Centres of the CGIAR have collectively developed the “Centres Position Statement on Biotechnology” and individual Future Harvest Centres have issued guiding principles for specific crop species. The Genetic Resources Policy Committee has also issued “Guiding principles for the development of Future Harvest Centres’ policies to address the possibility of unintentional presence of transgenes in ex situ collections”. IPGRI will ensure that the guiding principles and priorities adopted by CGIAR are followed in its work related to genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The current document sets out principles for IPGRI’s own work concerning GMOs.

Principles

GMOs have two distinct roles in agricultural research: as tools, to facilitate discovery, and as outputs with specific benefits. In both, IPGRI will adhere to five primary principles.

• IPGRI will ensure transparency in all its work related to GMOs.

• IPGRI’s work with GMOs will be designed to produce global public goods.

• IPGRI will only engage in projects that take into account socio-economic implications, intellectual property rights and environmental and health impacts.

• IPGRI will only engage in projects that observe the highest standards of safety in the conduct of laboratory and field experiments, meeting national and international legislation and codes of conduct.

• IPGRI will work with partners to study the impact of potential and actual gene flow from GMOs to local varieties and wild relatives, especially in centres of origin or diversity and as it relates to the use and conservation of agricultural biodiversity.