AFSI Newsletter - October 2020
Paraguay’s Path Toward the Simplification of Procedures in the Approval of GE Crops
Published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, this paper charts the recent evolution of the regulatory system in Paraguay toward the establishment of a simplified procedure for regulating GE crops. The authors credit capacity building activities conducted as part of the Partnership for Biosafety Risk Assessment and Regulation (PBRAR), which was led by the Agriculture and Food Systems Institute (AFSI), as a contributing factor to regulatory authorities in Paraguay incorporating the problem formulation approach to environmental risk assessment into their regulatory processes, leading to improved efficiency and more timely decisions. Pictured above are participants from a workshop focused on confined field trials of genetically modified plants, which was conducted under the PBRAR framework on July 10-11, 2014 in San Lorenzo, Paraguay.
The Importance of Regulatory Harmonization to Facilitate Research, Deployment, and Trade of Genome-Edited Plants
On October 20, 2020, as part of the One CGIAR Global Webinar Series on Genome Editing in Agriculture, our CEO, Dr. Morven McLean, will be delivering a presentation on the importance of regulatory harmonization as part of the concluding webinar in the series, which is focused on the path to commercialization for genome-edited crops. She will be joined by experts from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, International Food Policy Research Institute, CropLife International, the American Seed Trade Association, and the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, Australia.
Produce Marketing Association Virtual Town Hall: Resource Scarcity
Our Senior Scientific Program Manager, Dr. Rachel Melnick, served as a panelist for a virtual town hall focused on soil and water health, hosted by the Produce Marketing Association. During the event, she talked about the role of cover crops in improving soil health and discussed the importance of encouraging researchers to look for more specific solutions to resource scarcity problems.
SABP Webinar Series
The SABP Webinar Series continued with its fifth, sixth, and seventh installments, co-organized with the National Institute of Biotechnology (NIB), Sylhet Agricultural University (SAU), and Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), respectively. Aimed at students and early career scientists from academic institutions across Bangladesh, these events seek to increase knowledge about biosafety among current and future researchers, as well as expand the pool of scientists that can serve as resources to help inform the biosafety process.