THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Essential Features of Responsible Governance of Agricultural Biotechnologies
Agricultural biotechnology is a future-oriented endeavour and continues to generate considerable controversy. Therefore, its governance necessarily requires balancing the desire to harness potential future benefits with sensitivity to existing uncertainties and a constructive engagement with diverse societal needs and concerns. A new paper presents five essential features, that are interdependent rather than mutually exclusive, to help stimulate a broader discussion about how to enact this balancing act through developing scientifically and socially responsible governance of agricultural biotechnologies.
The five essential features are:
1) Commitment to Candour: Responsible governance of agricultural biotechnologies requires honesty and humility about several factors such as the underlying motivations for a technology’s use and development, the range of concerns at stake, and potential conflicts of interests in assessment and decision-making.
(2) Recognition of Underlying Values and Assumptions: This will make explicit the diverse ways there are to approach how desirable futures are imagined, how problems and solutions are framed and understood, and how risk-based science and assessment are performed.
(3) Involvement of a Broad Range of Knowledge and Actors: This will allow social and ethical concerns to be directly incorporated and addressed in decision-making, making the process more democratically legitimate and creating a more comprehensive knowledge base.
(4) Consideration of a Range of Alternatives: It is important to formulate and frame the problems at stake as well as the range of alternative approaches to solving them.
(5) Preparedness to Respond to societal needs and concerns as well as to new scientific knowledge, changing values, diverse interpretations of potential consequences, and shifting socioecological conditions.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
131 Jalan Macalister
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Malaysia
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ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNANCE OF AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY
Hartley S, Gillund F, van Hove L, and Wickson F.
Published: May 4, 2016
PLoS Biol 14(5): e1002453. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002453
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1002453
Abstract
Agricultural biotechnology continues to generate considerable controversy. We argue that to address this controversy, serious changes to governance are needed. The new wave of genomic tools and products (e.g., CRISPR, gene drives, RNAi, synthetic biology, and genetically modified [GM] insects and fish), provide a particularly useful opportunity to reflect on and revise agricultural biotechnology governance. In response, we present five essential features to advance more socially responsible forms of governance. In presenting these, we hope to stimulate further debate and action towards improved forms of governance, particularly as these new genomic tools and products continue to emerge.