Biotech Updates

Compliance with Biosafety Regulations in Developing Countries

March 30, 2012

The cost of compliance for a set of technologies in developing countries varies from US $100,000 to 1.7 million. This was the finding of a study on Estimates and implications of the costs of compliance with biosafety regulations in developing countries by Jose Falck-Zepeda and colleagues published in the journal GM Crops and Food.

The research team says that estimating the cost of compliance with biosafety regulations helps developers focus their investments in product development. The cost estimates need to be compared with potential gains when the technology is introduced in developing countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. They also have to be compared with the gains in knowledge accumulation during the biosafety assessment process.

In addition, the research team notes that while the cost of compliance is important, time delays and uncertainty need to be considered as they may have an adverse impact on innovations reaching farmers.

The abstract of the study is available at  http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/gmcrops/article/18727/