The global area of GM Crops continued to grow in 2018 and reached 191.7 million hectares. Twenty-six countries approved biotech crops for planting and an additional 44 countries (18 + 26 EU countries) officially imported biotech crops for food, feed, and processing, meaning that biotech crops are now commonly accepted in those countries. First-generation GM seed is being commercialized by global agricultural companies in advanced countries such as the United States and parts of Europe. The fact that more than 90% of first-generation GM seeds, which have been commercialized for 20 years, are both insect resistant and herbicide resistant proves that they continue to have an effect on improving agricultural productivity and increasing farmers' incomes. As the effectiveness of GM crops has been proven and technology has been developed, the GM crop development trend has recently changed. In other words, it has moved from being producer-oriented to benefiting both farmers and consumers. In Korea, the National Program for GM Crops (NCGC), one of the Next-Generation BioGreen 21 Programs organized by Rural Development Administration (RDA), was established in 2011 to develop biotech crops that will be used in the future to solve our agricultural problems. To accomplish this mission, the NCGC carried out the exploration of useful functional genes, the development of qualified events, and the safety assessment of developed events. Here, we introduce the current status of GM crop development and commercialization in the world and in Korea.
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Recently, several attempts have been undertaken to develop breeding technologies by combining new biotechnologies. Gene-editing technology is currently one of the most interesting areas. The plant breeding methods using this technique have the advantage of greatly improved accuracy and efficiency of the plant genetic correction compared with conventional breeding methods, which has raised expectations for the useful application of this technology as a cutting-edge breeding technology. Although not all countries around the world currently have established appropriate regulation policies on crops developed with gene-editing technology, the number of cases in which GMO regulations are not applied on a case-by-case basis according to the scientific background is growing. However, Korea has not yet established policies on which criteria should be applied to crops generated from the application of gene-editing technology. As the number of cases of crop development and commercialization using gene-editing technology is expected to increase in the near future, it will be necessary to prepare reasonable policies to support developers and seed industries in Korea to ensure harmonization with international regulatory policy trends.
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