Washington, D.C.
August 16, 2006
In December 2005, the Pew
Initiative on Food and Biotechnology and the National
Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA)
undertook the first in a series of dialogues on existing and
potential frameworks for engaging in cooperative oversight of
agricultural biotechnology and on the unique regulatory
challenges presented by the technology. The first workshop in
the series, “Agricultural Biotechnology Information
Disclosure: Accommodating Conflicting Interests Within Public
Access Norms,” was held in Dallas, Texas, and examined how
confidential business information (CBI) conflicts can impede
cooperation between state and federal regulatory agencies.
Over the course of the two-day event,
participants from both federal and state governments gathered to
find solutions to the issues that disrupt cooperation between
state and federal agencies in their efforts to share information
necessary for effective oversight of agricultural biotechnology.
The Pew Initiative is pleased to announce that a
paper based on that workshop is now available at:
http://pewagbiotech.org/events/1214/WorkshopReport.pdf.
Some of the key points that emerged from the
workshop included:
-
State and federal regulatory authorities
sometimes are not able to share important information with
each other about the field trials they regulate due to the
need to protect confidential business information.
-
State regulators often do not have
sufficient information from federal agencies to understand
and assess the safety and containment measures associated
with a particular field trial.
-
State agricultural officials, who are often
on the “front lines,” have difficulty providing assurances
to concerned citizens inquiring about genetically engineered
crops, due in part to the lack of information from their
federal counterparts.
-
In terms of agricultural biotechnology
regulation, there is a clear need for the relevant federal
government agencies to forge strong relationships with the
relevant state agencies and to find ways to be conduits for
information sharing and collaborative oversight of
genetically engineered crops and experimental field trials
of those crops.
An overview of the conference agenda and the
full paper from the workshop can be viewed at
http://pewagbiotech.org/events/1214.
The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology
is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research project whose goal is to
inform the public and policymakers on issues about genetically
modified food and agricultural biotechnology, including its
importance, as well as concerns about it and its regulation. It
is supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to the
University of Richmond.
