The regulatory bottleneck for biotech specialty crops

Speciality crops. Image from Colorado State University.

We often hear that there are only two genetically engineered traits on the market – Roundup Ready and Bt. And, for the most part, that’s correct. There are a few other commercialized traits, such as virus resistant papaya and squash, but why aren’t there more? We see all sorts of papers about awesome genetically engineered traits, from nemotode resistance to nutritional enhancement to really specialized traits like nicotine free tobacco and allergen free peanuts. There are so many traits that we even started a list at Biofortified in an attempt to keep track of them all.

These traits have been developed and tested for efficacy, often with public funding, but haven’t make it to the commercialization stage. All that’s needed is a little breeding to get these traits ready for market. Why don’t we see them in the grocery store? UC Davis researchers Kent Bradford and Jamie Miller have collected a huge amount of data on genetically engineered traits and presented it in their recent paper The regulatory bottleneck for biotech specialty crops. It’s a short but insightful piece. Don’t forget to check out the supplementary material that has lists of all the different traits they found described in the literature.