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Federal Uncertainty or Inconsistency? Releasing the New Agricultural-Environmental Biotechnology Into the Fields

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Patrick Stewart  and
A. Ann Sorensen
Patrick Stewart
Affiliation:
Arkansas State University, USA
A. Ann Sorensen
Affiliation:
American Farmland Trust, USA
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Abstract

This article reviews the regulation of the new agricultural-environmental biotechnology and recent changes in the regulatory framework in the United States. Regulations put in place in the mid-1980s were established due to concern over potential risks posed by products not yet released into the environment. Now that over a thousand small-scale field trials have been carried out and various new agricultural-environmental biotechnology products have been in farmers' fields for the past several years, questions are being raised about the current regulatory system by both proponents, who want greater deregulation due to the relative absence of ecological harm, and opponents, who warn against potential environmental catastrophe due to greater variety and amount of new agricultural-environmental products being released. Therefore, we focus on triggers for regulation, which appear to hinge on the “naturalness” of a product, and trends in field release of these products.

Type
Ecological Regulations
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 77 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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