Promoting Ethically Responsible Use of Agricultural Biotechnology

Growing global demands for food, bioenergy, and specialty products, along with the threat posed by various environmental changes—including climate change— present substantial challenges for agricultural production. Agricultural biotechnology offers a promising avenue for meeting these challenges. To be effective, however, solutions must be ethically responsible, socially responsive, relevant to people of different cultural and social backgrounds, and conveyed to the public in a convincing and straightforward manner. In an article in Trends in Plant Science, Richard Meilan (Professor Emeritus, Forestry & Natural Resources) and colleagues highlight how ethical approaches, principled decision-making strategies, citizen-stakeholder participation, effective science communication, and bioethics education should be used to guide responsible use of agricultural biotechnology.

Read article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1360138520303927