There are a number of controversial issues that surround agricultural biotechnology and genetically modified products. International trade and policies are at the forefront of these controversies. This book addresses these issues and has been developed from a meeting of the International Consortium on Agricultural Biotechnology Research, held in Revello, Italy, in July 2004. It covers five themes: analytical studies; empirical trade studies; spillover dimensions; intellectual property rights; and applied general equilibrium trade models.
Genetically engineered (GE) crops were first introduced commercially in the 1990s. After two decades of production, some groups and individuals remain critical of the technology based on their concerns about possible adverse effects on human health, the environment, and ethical considerations. At the same time, others are concerned that the technology is not reaching its potential to improve human health and the environment because of stringent regulations and reduced public funding to develop products offering more benefits to society. While the debate about these and other questions related to the genetic engineering techniques of the first 20 years goes on, emerging genetic-engineering technologies are adding new complexities to the conversation. Genetically Engineered Crops builds on previous related Academies reports published between 1987 and 2010 by undertaking a retrospective examination of the purported positive and adverse effects of GE crops and to anticipate what emerging genetic-engineering technologies hold for the future. This report indicates where there are uncertainties about the economic, agronomic, health, safety, or other impacts of GE crops and food, and makes recommendations to fill gaps in safety assessments, increase regulatory clarity, and improve innovations in and access to GE technology.
“A gripping fly-on-the-wall story of the rise of this unique and important industry based on extensive interviews with some of the most successful venture capitalists.” - Daniel Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal “A must-read for anyone seeking to understand modern-day Silicon Valley and even our economy writ large.” -Bethany McLean, The Washington Post "A rare and unsettling look inside a subculture of unparalleled influence.” —Jane Mayer "A classic...A book of exceptional reporting, analysis and storytelling.” —Charles Duhigg From the New York Times bestselling author of More Money Than God comes the astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley’s dominant venture-capital firms—and how their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world. In The Power Law, Sebastian Mallaby has parlayed unprecedented access to the most celebrated venture capitalists of all time—the key figures at Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Benchmark, and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Chinese partnerships such as Qiming and Capital Today—into a riveting blend of storytelling and analysis that unfurls the history of tech incubation, in the Valley and ultimately worldwide. We learn the unvarnished truth, often for the first time, about some of the most iconic triumphs and infamous disasters in Valley history, from the comedy of errors at the birth of Apple to the avalanche of venture money that fostered hubris at WeWork and Uber. VCs’ relentless search for grand slams brews an obsession with the ideal of the lone entrepreneur-genius, and companies seen as potential “unicorns” are given intoxicating amounts of power, with sometimes disastrous results. On a more systemic level, the need to make outsized bets on unproven talent reinforces bias, with women and minorities still represented at woefully low levels. This does not just have social justice implications: as Mallaby relates, China’s homegrown VC sector, having learned at the Valley’s feet, is exploding and now has more women VC luminaries than America has ever had. Still, Silicon Valley VC remains the top incubator of business innovation anywhere—it is not where ideas come from so much as where they go to become the products and companies that create the future. By taking us so deeply into the VCs’ game, The Power Law helps us think about our own future through their eyes.
The controversial issue of genetically modified (GM) food is discussed in this book. While the United States (US) is a strong supporter of GM technology having adopted a rather lax regulation of trade with GM products, the European Union (EU) is representing a sceptical position towards this new technology and has even imposed a de facto moratorium on further approval of GM products from 1998 to 2004. The purpose of this book is an extensive analysis of the current status on risks and benefits of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and a suggestion on how an appropriate regulation of GM products could be derived. Potential guidelines are provided for policy formulation both in a qualitative and in a quantitative dimension. The US is applying the principle of substantial equivalence, which means that GM products are in their substance identical to products produced by conventional methods. Therefore, no new regulations are necessary for the trade with GM products. In contrast, the European Union (EU) disagrees that GM products are equivalent to their conventional counterparts due to the different production process. Instead, the EU refers to the precautionary principle in its GMO policy, meaning that trade with GM products should be restricted until it will be proven that no additional risks are implied by the use of these products. The divergence of opinions about the right policy to regulate GM products has significant impacts on trade flows and welfare effects. The US and the EU have already tried to resolve their dispute before the World Trade Organization (WTO). Relevant laws of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO are presented as well as indications for a potential consensus.
This volume brings together fresh insights from top agricultural economists in the areas of consumer attitudes, environmental impacts, policy and regulation, trade, investment, food security, and development, in an attempt to provide a new perspective on the most pressing policy questions facing GM technology.
Since their commercial introduction in 1996, genetically modified (GM) crops have been adopted by farmers around the world at impressive rates. In 2011, 180 million hectares of GM crops were cultivated by more than 15 million farmers in 29 countries. In the next decade, global adoption is expected to grow even faster as the research pipeline for new biotech traits and crops has increased almost fourfold in the last few years. The adoption of GM crops has led to increased productivity, while reducing pesticide use and the emissions of agricultural greenhouse gases, leading to broadly distributed economic benefits across the global food supply chain. Despite the rapid uptake of GM crops, the various social and economic benefits as well as the expanding rate innovation, the use of GM crops remains controversial in parts of the world. Despite the emergence of coexistence between GM, organic and conventional crops as a key policy and practical issue of global scale, there is no coherent literature that addresses it directly. Governments and market stakeholders in many countries are grappling with policy alternatives that settle conflicting property rights, minimize negative market externalities and associated liabilities, maximize the economic benefits of innovation and allow producer and consumer choice. This book intends to fill these needs with contributions from the top theoreticians, legal and economic analysts, policy makers and industry practitioners in the field. As the economics and policy of coexistence start to emerge as an separate subfield in agricultural, environmental and natural resource economics with an increasing number of scholars working on the topic, the book will also provide a comprehensive base in the literature for those entering the area, making it of interest to students, scholars and policy-makers alike.
This book provides novel and thought-provoking insights into the fundamental policy issues involved in agricultural biotechnology. Thomas Bernauer explains global regulatory polarization and trade conflict in this area. He then evaluates co-operative and unilateral policy tools for coping with trade tensions. Arguing that the tools used thus far have been and will continue to be ineffective, he concludes that the risk of a full-blown trade conflict is high and may lead to reduced investment and the decline of the technology. Bernauer concludes with suggestions for policy reforms to halt this trajectory -recommendations that strike a balance between public-safety concerns and private economic freedom - so that food biotechnology is given a fair chance to prove its environmental, health, humanitarian and economic benefits.
This book provides in-depth insights into the regulatory frameworks of five countries and the EU concerning the regulation of genome edited plants. The country reports form the basis for a comparative analysis of the various national regulations governing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in general and genome edited plants in particular, as well as the underlying regulatory approaches.The reports, which focus on the regulatory status quo of genome edited plants in Argentina, Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan and the USA, were written by distinguished experts following a uniform structure. On this basis, the legal frameworks are compared in order to foster a rational assessment of which approaches could be drawn upon to adjust, or to completely realign, the current EU regime for GMOs. In addition, a separate chapter identifies potential best practices for the regulation of plants derived from genome editing.
The National Research Council's Roundtable on Public Interfaces of the Life Sciences held a 2-day workshop on January 15-16, 2015, in Washington, DC to explore the public interfaces between scientists and citizens in the context of genetically engineered (GE) organisms. The workshop presentations and discussions dealt with perspectives on scientific engagement in a world where science is interpreted through a variety of lenses, including cultural values and political dispositions, and with strategies based on evidence in social science to improve public conversation about controversial topics in science. The workshop focused on public perceptions and debates about genetically engineered plants and animals, commonly known as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), because the development and application of GMOs are heavily debated among some stakeholders, including scientists. For some applications of GMOs, the societal debate is so contentious that it can be difficult for members of the public, including policy-makers, to make decisions. Thus, although the workshop focused on issues related to public interfaces with the life science that apply to many science policy debates, the discussions are particularly relevant for anyone involved with the GMO debate. Public Engagement on Genetically Modified Organisms: When Science and Citizens Connect summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
An increasingly hot-button issue, genetically modified (GM) food is considered by some as the best way to feed the world's growing population, and by others as an experiment gone wrong on the unsuspecting public. Genetically Modified Foods: Basics, Applications, and Controversy details the basics of biotechnology and its applications in the laborat
