By:
Chuck Woods (352) 392-1773 ext 281Source:
Indra Vasil ikv@mail.ifas.ufl.edu, (352) 392-1193 or (407) 939-10
ORLANDO—Speaking to more than l,000 scientists from 50 nations at a biotechnology conference in Orlando, June 24, a University of Florida scientist said regulatory requirements for transgenic foods should be gradually relaxed and lifted.
“When the United States established safety standards for biotechnology more than 15 years ago, they were adopted worldwide by the biotech industry, and now it’s time for the U.S. to assert its leadership once again by relaxing many of these requirements,” said Indra Vasil, graduate research professor emeritus with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
He told members of the International Association for Plant Tissue Culture & Biotechnology that biotech offers the best hope of tripling food production during the next 50 years to feed the world’s booming population.
“Population increases in China, India and other developing nations, coupled with changing dietary habits, mean that we must move toward greater use of biotechnology in agriculture,” Vasil said. “Moreover, the food needs of the future must be met on less arable land and with less water than ever before — without harming the environment.”
He said opposition to transgenic crops and foods, particularly in Europe, is political and ideological. “It has no scientific basis,” he said. “Transgenic crops have been grown during the last ten years on hundreds of millions of acres under varying climatic conditions in more than 15 countries.”
Vasil, who was elected president of the international association at its last congress in Jerusalem in 1998, said the present level of regulatory oversight is now unnecessary because it needlessly increases the cost of transgenic products and unduly delays their introduction into the international agricultural system.
“Without any evidence of harm to humans or the environment, it is morally and socially irresponsible and indefensible to prevent or delay the applications of plant biotechnology to the problems of hunger, human health and protection of the environment,” he said in his presidential address to the international plant biotech association.
Transgenic plants designed to protect crops from weeds, pests and pathogens have been grown on more than 300 million acres, Vasil said. These include 74 percent of the soybean acreage, 71 percent of the cotton acreage and 32 percent of corn acreage in the United States in 2002. The annual transgenic seed market is currently valued at $3 billion.
“These improved crops are beginning to have a positive impact on human health, the environment and our shared future by reducing the use of harmful agro-chemicals, and by contributing to the conservation of biodiversity, scarce arable land, and precious water and energy resources,” Vasil said.
The UF scientist said transgenic crops now being evaluated for commercial production include those with improved nutritional characteristics and shelf life, tolerance to a variety of biotic and abiotic stresses, and those designed for the production of vaccines, pharmaceuticals and many other useful substances.
Vasil, recently identified “as one of the most highly cited, influential researchers” in his field by the Institute of Scientific Information in Philadelphia, said transgenic foods already have been consumed by hundreds of millions of humans and farm animals.
“Nearly 60 percent of the processed foods in the U.S. contain transgenic ingredients, yet there is not a single verifiable example of any harmful health effects to humans or to animals or any damage to the environment,” he said.
“The rules and regulations established in the United States to govern the production, handling, transport and human use of transgenic plant products have served an important and useful purpose,” Vasil said. “However, based on the extraordinary safety record of transgenic plants and foods over the past decade, it is time for our government agencies to consider the gradual relaxation and eventual lifting of most of the regulatory requirements, except in those rare instances where there is demonstrable risk to humans or the environment.”
Vasil said the association is the oldest and the largest international professional organization in plant biotechnology, with nearly 2,000 members in more than 75 countries.
“The congress, held Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, June 23-28, is co-sponsored by UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and represents a partnership between academia and industry,” he said.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Vasil’s address is scheduled for Monday, June 24, 2002, at 9:15 a.m. in the Fiesta Ballroom of Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, Lake Buena Vista.
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