title: Strategies to enable the adoption of animal biotechnology to sustainably improve global food safety and security.
abstract: The ability to generate transgenic animals has existed for over 30 years, and from those early days many predicted that the technology would have beneficial applications in agriculture. Numerous transgenic agricultural animals now exist, however to date only one product from a transgenic animal has been approved for the food chain, due in part to cumbersome regulations. Recently, new techniques such as precision breeding have emerged, which enables the introduction of desired traits without the use of transgenes. The rapidly growing human population, environmental degradation, and concerns related to zoonotic and pandemic diseases have increased pressure on the animal agriculture sector to provide a safe, secure and sustainable food supply. There is a clear need to adopt transgenic technologies as well as new methods such as gene editing and precision breeding to meet these challenges and the rising demand for animal products. To achieve this goal, cooperation, education, and communication between multiple stakeholders-including scientists, industry, farmers, governments, trade organizations, NGOs and the public-is necessary. This report is the culmination of concepts first discussed at an OECD sponsored conference and aims to identify the main barriers to the adoption of animal biotechnology, tactics for navigating those barriers, strategies to improve public perception and trust, as well as industry engagement, and actions for governments and trade organizations including the OECD to harmonize regulations and trade agreements. Specifically, the report focuses on animal biotechnologies that are intended to improve breeding and genetics and currently are not routinely used in commercial animal agriculture. We put forward recommendations on how scientists, regulators, and trade organizations can work together to ensure that the potential benefits of animal biotechnology can be realized to meet the future needs of agriculture to feed the world.
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, Geelong, Australia.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tizard
authors.affiliation: Virginia Polytechic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hallerman
authors.affiliation: University of Minnesota, Recombinetics, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fahrenkrug
authors.affiliation: University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Newell-McGloughlin
authors.affiliation: University of New England, Armidale, Australia.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gibson
authors.affiliation: Flow Biotech, Soest, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Frans
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: de Loos
authors.affiliation: AgResearch, Hamilton, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wagner
authors.affiliation: AgResearch, Hamilton, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Götz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Laible
authors.affiliation: Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Yong
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: D'Occhio
authors.affiliation: Food Standards Australia New Zealand, Canberra, Australia.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, Geelong, Australia.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lowenthal
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Food and Nutrition, Werribee, Australia.
authors.forename: Kari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gobius
authors.affiliation: Foreign Animal Inspection Agency, Winnipeg, Canada.
authors.forename: Primal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, Geelong, Australia.
authors.forename: Caitlin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, Geelong, Australia. Timothy.Doran@csiro.au.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Doran
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics*; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000639:trends*; D001947:Breeding; D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development; D059022:Food Safety; D005523:Food Supply; D006801:Humans
keywords: Animal biotechnology; Food safety; Gene editing; Precision breeding; Regulation; Transgenic