Trends in approval times for genetically engineered crops in the United States and the European Unio

Richard D. Smart*, Matthias Blum, J.H.H. Wesseler

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

68 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Genetically engineered (GE) crops are subject to regulatory oversight to Ensure their safety for humans and the environment. Their approval in the European Union (EU) starts with an application in a given Member State followed by a scientific risk assessment, and ends with a political decision-making step (risk management). Int he United States (US) approval begins with a scientific (field trial) step and ends with a 'bureaucratic' decision-making step. We investigate trends for the time taken for these steps and the overall time taken for approving GE crops in the US and the EU. Our resulst show that from 1996-2015 the overall time trend for aproval in the EU cereased thd then flattened off, with an overall mean completion-time of 1,763 days. In the US in 1998 there was a break in the trend of the overall approval time. Initially, from 1988 until 1997 the trend decreased with a mean approval time of 1,321 days; from 1998-2015, the trend almost stagnated with amean approval time of 2,467 days.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)182-198
JournalJournal of Agricultural Economics
Volume68
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • Authorisation
  • EU
  • GE
  • genetically modified organism (GMO)
  • regulatory oversight
  • transgenic
  • US

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Trends in approval times for genetically engineered crops in the United States and the European Unio'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this