Governance of New Biotechnology in Food and Agricultural Sector: Case of Genome Editing

Abstract

The recent advancement in new biotechnology—namely genome editing tools—has prompted excitement in research and development community and allowed a lot of application in the field of food and agriculture to be developed. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the potential governance challenges posed by this new emerging biotechnology and to present the needed policy measures with particular focus on Japanese context. For that purpose, we identified challenges in regulation, research and development and social acceptance. We then explored the desirable recommendations on measures to be taken in terms of (1) horizon scanning, (2) foresight, (3) technology assessment, safety assessment and regulatory gap analysis, and (4) risk communication.