Advancements in genomic crop techniques and considerations for regulation and food safety

Advancements in genomic crop techniques have led to the development of new genetic technologies, such as base- and prime editing, but improvements have been made to existing conventional techniques as well. Fields in which these advancements occur include targeted mutagenesis, conventional random mutagenesis, and developments with null segregants, e.g., crops from which transgenic elements have been crossed out. In this review, we describe the developments in these three fields and provide considerations concerning regulatory and safety aspects. Because of differences in legislation of modern biotechnology between countries or regions, regulatory challenges are to be expected given the ongoing developments in genomic crop techniques. Moreover, the nature of the mutations induced with these newly developed techniques is not different from those induced with conventional techniques, making the modified crop plants indistinguishable from non-modified counterparts of the same crop species. Thus, enforcement of regulations cannot solely rely on technical analytical methods. Also, potential off-target or unintended effects in the primary mutants remain underexplored. Yet, these do not raise safety concerns owing to the experience with the crop breeding practice of iterative cycles for desirable traits selection, as well as the segregation and discard of unwanted phenotypes. Given that regulation will always change after innovation and developments within the sector advance rapidly, we advocate that both authorities and the breeding sector pro-actively implement a food safety culture. Such a safety culture will help developers of genomic technologies in crops to identify potential food safety issues at an early stage of development of future products.