The current regulatory status of biotechnologically bred crops in Canada and beyond

Crop breeding, which relies on the presence and/or generation of alterations in DNA, has been essential to the development of agricultural production. Such breeding endeavours are carried out using a wide range of methods, which have diversified immensely over the years as our understanding of genetics has grown. While this expansion in our breeding "toolbox" has provided vast improvements in the specificity, pace and effectiveness of crop trait enhancement, apprehension surrounding the use of biotechnological breeding platforms in particular led countries to develop costly and lengthy regulatory processes for plants deemed to be "genetically modified" as a means of managing safety concerns and assuaging public unease. In this article, we discuss crop regulatory policies in Canada and beyond, in the context of transgenic crops, as well as those developed using newer biotechnological breeding platforms such as gene editing. We also examine the benefits of biotechnologically bred crops, and consider the broader socio-economic, ethical, and environmental impacts of overly restrictive regulatory frameworks, which could very feasibly limit the prospect of food security in the future.