Application of the Safe-by-Design Concept in Crop Breeding Innovation

Jan Pieter van der Berg, Gijs A. Kleter, Evy Battaglia, Lianne M. S. Bouwman and Esther J. Kok
Additional contact information
Jan Pieter van der Berg: Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University and Research, Akkermaalsbos 2, P.O. Box 230, NL-6700 AE Wageningen, The Netherlands
Gijs A. Kleter: Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University and Research, Akkermaalsbos 2, P.O. Box 230, NL-6700 AE Wageningen, The Netherlands
Evy Battaglia: Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University and Research, Akkermaalsbos 2, P.O. Box 230, NL-6700 AE Wageningen, The Netherlands
Lianne M. S. Bouwman: Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University and Research, Akkermaalsbos 2, P.O. Box 230, NL-6700 AE Wageningen, The Netherlands
Esther J. Kok: Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University and Research, Akkermaalsbos 2, P.O. Box 230, NL-6700 AE Wageningen, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: The present paper proposes the application of the safe-by-design concept to crop breeding innovation with the aim to accommodate safety considerations for new agricultural food and feed products. Safe-by-design can be implemented in all stages of the innovation cycle of agricultural products, from the early stages of research and development towards the post-market stage. Our proposed application of safe-by-design can be part of “responsible research and innovation” concepts, because they share features such as risk prevention strategies and a participatory approach. Early awareness of potential safety issues can guide the development of agricultural products towards safe options, both at the process and product level, and thus may help to reduce extensive pre-market assessment studies that might otherwise be needed further downstream for regulatory product approval. Here, it is discussed how the proposed safe-by-design approach can be introduced into the development of safe food crops using emerging technologies, such as gene editing and synthetic biology, and how this may help to safeguard the safety of our food and feed supply in the light of the ongoing global innovations in agricultural crop breeding.

Keywords: crop breeding innovations; food; risk assessment; safe-by-design; synthetic biology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6420/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/17/6420/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:17:p:6420-:d:408422

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().