Adapting to the Changing World of Biotechnology

Abstract

Agriculture has relied on plant breeding to improve genetics since the first domestication of agricultural plants 10,000 years ago. More recently, Gregor Mendel and his hybridization experiments on peas led to what we know as modern genetics. The rise in recombinantDNA technology has opened up many possibilities in plant breeding, including Roundup Ready technology and crop varieties designed to resist a number of pests. At the same time, governments and the private sector have sought to institute regulations for handling the releases of new biotechnology to ensure the technologies will have limited environmental impacts and provide safe foods to the public. These rules and requirements vary from nation to nation. This Article uses a recent example—the Syngenta AG MIR162 corn litigation—and its potential impact on the future development and releases of biotechnology as an illustration. Although Syngenta received proper approvals for the use of genetic events MIR162 and Event 5307 in the U.S. and with trade associations like the National Corn Growers Association prior to their commercialization, the genetic events were not approved in all markets.