Biotechnology and North American specialty crops: Linking research, regulation, and stakeholders

摘要

Taxpayers in the United States have invested heavily in public-sector research in agricultural biotechnology to provide more-sustainable and productive crops and safe and nutritious foods. Since the mid-1980s, scientists at the USDA and in university and small private laboratories have developed a broad range of genetically engineered (GE) varieties of specialty crops with useful traits including enhanced tolerances of biotic and abiotic stresses and improved nutrition1. Almost a thousand different GE lines of small-market and specialty crops1 were among the almost 17,000 regulated field trials approved by USDA since 1987.