ITIF Recommends Policies to Address Food Security and Climate Change through Biotech

The International Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) released a report explaining why advanced agricultural innovation, including development and cultivation of next-generation biotech products, is an important response to the growing challenges of food security and climate change. According to Val Giddings and other authors of the report, there is a need for new and improved crop varieties that use less water, deliver increased yields and enhanced nutrition, and have a built-in means to fight both abiotic and biotic stresses. Thus, agriculture will need all the tools in its tool box, including the new ones – the genetically modified organisms or transgenics.

The authors outlined three policies that could be implemented on global and domestic scales to come up with strong agricultural innovation ecosystem capable of producing the next-generation crop technologies addressing the pressing needs of the population in a warming planet. These policies are summarized below:

• Boost global public investment in advanced agriculture innovation.
• Governments worldwide should reform GMO regulations.
• Create or strengthen institutions to serve as Centers of Innovation for Excellence.