Gene editing has the potential to change agriculture, but only if consumers believe it’s a beneficial technology….The best way and maybe the only way to get the public onside is to give them food traits and crop attributes they want.

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“If you like avocados and you don’t want them to be brown and you choose a gene-edited avocado because of that, you’re just not going to care about gene-edited tilapia, or soybeans or whatever….” said Jack Bobo, vice-president of global policy and government affairs with Intrexon, an American firm that produces….the non-browning Arctic Apple.

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The counter-argument is that agriculture needs to rely on sound science and then convince the public to trust the science of modern agriculture.

In 2016, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences….published a 587-page report on genetically modfied crops….[T]he academy “found no substantiated evidence that foods from GE….crops were less safe than foods from non-GE crops.”

Such a report should have ended the conversation about the safety of GM food. It didn’t. Sound science doesn’t matter to many members of the public. What does matter is a canola oil that makes mayonnaise tastier and healthier.

Read full, original article: Public must support gene-editing revolution