Agriculture and Nutrition

Maintaining Canada’s leadership in the development and adoption of agricultural biotechnology requires a science-based, internationally competitive approach to regulating these technologies. As new plant and animal-based biotechnology applications are developed our regulatory system must be able to adapt to changes in technology so Canadians can continue to reap the significant productivity, environmental and nutritional benefits of agricultural biotechnology.

Plants with Novel Traits:

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) regulates plants on the basis of novelty in the environment and use as animal feed. This product-based approach to regulation has served Canada well over the past 12+ years and has approved over 80 biotech crops. As plant biotechnology moves into new areas of nutritional enhancement, drought tolerance, disease tolerance and specialty applications the environmental and feed assessments will need to adapt to these new uses and potentially to new crop species. BIOTECanada works with CFIA and Health Canada to ensure that the regulation of plant biotechnology remains science-based and internationally competitive.

Animal Biotechnology and Cloning:

Canada is a leader in the development of animal biotechnology with applications in the livestock and aquaculture industries. Regulatory systems for animal biotechnology are taking shape around the world and if Canadians are to benefit from our own innovations we will need a robust and predictable process for the regulation of these new technologies. Likewise, Canada must adopt a competitive position on the regulation of cloned animals and their progeny that conforms with that of our major trading partners and confirms that these animals pose no additional safety issues in comparison to non-cloned animals.