Every new or improved technology, regardless of its particular field or application, can involve risk, potential risk, or perception of risk by stakeholders and/or end users. However, it is often overlooked that the rejection of technology also has risks in the form of missed opportunities for benefits.
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Without considering the potential benefits of a new technology in its regulatory oversight and acceptance, society as a whole is ill served. An example where the benefits have been found to greatly outweigh the risks is the case of genetically engineered (GE) crops. In jurisdictions where regulators consider risks and benefits of particular GE crops, such crops have been approved for cultivation and embraced by farmers in a way unprecedented for an agricultural technology.
By contrast, where regulation focuses primarily on risk, without significantly weighing the context of the existing agricultural systems and the benefits GE crops bring relative to existing technology, farmers (and society) have been largely excluded from the environmental, health, and economic benefits of this technology.
Furthermore, the high cost of developing GE crops to meet risk-disproportionate regulatory requirements in countries that import significant volumes of food and feed crops has generally restricted the development of this technology to large multinational corporations aimed at wide-acre solutions for farmers in developed countries.
Read full, original article: Risk-Only Assessment of Genetically Engineered Crops Is Risky
