Viewpoint: Beyond the precautionary principle — Climate change concerns underscore need for coordinated, flexible crop gene editing regulation

Although public-sector research centers across the developing world initially enthusiastically embraced biotech processes, wide adoption has since been impeded by controversies surrounding the risks posed for human and environmental health.

We take this opportunity to stress the consideration of other important issues in the design of such governance frameworks:

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• Regulation should focus on the imperative of applying consistent safety requirements on all products, regardless of how they are produced….
• An essential requirement is that measures for risk management and mitigation be proportional to the hazards they seek to address.
• The full range of social and ecological benefits should be explored globally and be supported if applicable to developing countries. The voices of the Global South are indispensable in any multi-stakeholder dialogue on governance framework design and implementation.
• The current moral imperative embodied in the Precautionary Principle necessarily disincentivizes innovation and ignores the many opportunities for improvement. It discriminates against newer, safer technologies and prolongs dependence on obsolete methods with worsening environmental impacts…. This is of special importance for developing countries, where modern plant-breeding methods can allow local scientists to innovate and improve the crops needed to feed their citizens.

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