Genome Editing in Agriculture: Methods, Applications, and Governance is a paper in the series on The Need for Agricultural Innovation to Sustainably Feed the World by 2050. Genome editing is a powerful new method that enables unprecedented control over genetic material and offers the opportunity to make rapid advances in basic and applied biology. This issue paper describes how genome editing is performed, the types of “edits” that can be made, how the process relates to traditional breeding and conventional genetic engineering, and the potential limitations of the approach. The paper also presents an overview of the current landscape of governance of genome editing, including existing regulations, international agreements, and standards and codes of conduct, as well as a discussion of factors that affect governance, including comparison with other approaches to genetic modification, environmental and animal welfare impacts of specific applications, values of producers and consumers, and economic impacts, among others.

Chair: Adam J. Bogdanove, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. IP60, July 2018, 24 pp.  Available free online and in print (fee for shipping/handling).

Publication Impact Report (final) – July 2020