Genetically Modified Organisms
The CGIAR Centres of the CGIAR have collectively developed the "Centres Position Statement on Biotechnology" and individual Centres have issued guiding principles for specific crop species. In 2005, Bioversity approved its own set of guiding principles regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Bioversity's Statement of Principles on GMOs
GMOs have two distinct roles in agricultural research: as tools, to facilitate discovery, and as outputs with specific benefits. In both, Bioversity will adhere to five primary principles.
Bioversity will ensure transparency in all its work related to GMOs.
Bioversity's work with GMOs will be designed to produce global public goods.
Bioversity will only engage in projects that take into account socio-economic implications, intellectual property rights and environmental and health impacts.
Bioversity will only engage in projects that observe the highest standards of safety in the conduct of laboratory and field experiments, meeting national and international legislation and codes of conduct.
Bioversity will work with partners to study the impact of potential and actual gene flow from GMOs to local varieties and wild relatives, especially in centres of origin or diversity and as it relates to the use and conservation of agricultural biodiversity.
CGIAR Centres' Position Statement on Biotechnology
Given the immensity of the long-term food security and environmental conservation challenges confronting countries of the South, the Centres firmly believe in the following propositions:
Biotechnology must be viewed as one of the critical tools for providing food security for the poor.
The Centres advocate the prudent application of the full range of biotechnology tools to achieve substantial and sustainable growth in agricultural productivity in poor countries. These tools include, but are not limited to, molecular markers, genetic engineering, and recombinant vaccines.
The Centres view biotechnology as an important means for ensuring environmental protection over the long term.
The Centres have a clear comparative advantage in ensuring access by the countries of the South to the advanced tools of biotechnology. This advantage accrues by virtue of its present credible mass in biotechnology, its global network of partnerships within and among countries of the South, and its increasingly close linkages to advance research institutions of the north, both public and private.
Given the extremely rapid pace of new developments in biotechnology, the Centres are committed to increasing their partnerships with ARIs, both public and private, north and south, to ensure ready access of Centre scientists and our partners in the south to advanced technologies.
The Centres make adequate investments in the arena of biotechnology in order to:
- 1) maintain their own credible scientific mass,
- 2) be proactive in assisting countries of the South to establish effective biosafety regulations, and
- 3) contribute substantially to developing the human capital needed to ensure the judicious application of appropriate biotechnology tools to important food security and environmental problems.
The Centres are firmly committed to the application of genomics (molecular genetics, molecular markers) for immediate use in better understanding and manipulating the genomes of plants, animals, and their pathogens and pests.
The development and deployment of transgenics (via genetic engineering), is seen by the Centres to provide important options for meeting the food security and environmental challenges of the future.
The Centres will carry out all of their activities in the arena of biotechnology under high standards of appropriate and approved biosafety regulatory frameworks, both within individual countries and institutions. The Centres will seek partnerships with institutes that have such frameworks in place (thus our commitment to policy and capacity building in this area).
