Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1.5
Types of crops and stress tolerance field tested by different types of R&D organizations
Public
institutions
Entrepreneurial
seed & biotech
companies
Corporations
Grains
General, abiotic, or envi-
ronmental stress
53
14
156
Drought stress
35
18
704
Temperature stress
11
55
Salinity stress
2
12
5
Oilseeds
General, abiotic, or envi-
ronmental stress
116
107
146
Drought stress
15
2
320
Temperature stress
5
24
Salinity stress
1
18
Horticultural
General, abiotic, or envi-
ronmental stress
42
22
2
Drought stress
40
7
4
Temperature stress
30
3
7
Salinity stress
10
4
Forage & Forestry General, abiotic, or envi-
ronmental stress
226
1
Drought stress
56
12
Temperature stress
8
64
Salinity stress
49
1
Again, varieties being developed by a breeding approach are not regulated, and
therefore are not systematically visible in this data.
Regulatory filings and approvals for stress tolerant biotech crops, were searched
on international lists kept by the OECD (BioTrack Product Database
2011
), the
Center for Environmental Risk Assessment (GM Crop Database
2011
), and the In-
ternational Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) (GM
Approvals Database
2011
). These data sources appeared to exhibit some lag in re-
porting. So, again, regulatory filings were sought directly from relevant government
authorities in the United States (http://www.isb.vt.edu/search-petition-data.aspx),
Europe (http://ec.europa.eu/food/dyna/gm_register/index_en.cfm), Canada (http://
www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/gmf-agm/appro/index-eng.php; http://active.inspection.
gc.ca/eng/plaveg/bio/pntvcne.asp), Australia/New Zealand (http://www.foodstan-
dards.gov.au/consumerinformation/gmfoods/), Japan (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/eng-
lish/topics/food/), India (http://igmoris.nic.in/commercial_approved.asp), Mexico
(Juarez and Branson
2011
), and Brazil (http://www.ctnbio.gov.br/index.php/con-
tent/view/12492.html). Recent data on regulatory approvals could not be located
for China (Huang and Wang
2002
). Amongst these sources, effectively only two
transgenic plants were found to have reached the regulatory stage. These two are the
subject of about a dozen regulatory submissions observed across six different coun-
tries and regional authorities to date (Table
1.6
). The two are the drought-tolerant
maize varieties developed by Monsanto and a cold-tolerant eucalyptus developed
