Editorial: Social aspects of crop genome editing

Srividhya Venkataraman^1*Kathleen Hefferon²

• ¹Independent researcher, Toronto, Canada
• ²University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

The price of research and development for generating genome-edited crops as well as their regulatory approval can exacerbate disparities within and between nations. Further, there prevail economic concerns regarding a minority of big, multinational corporations acquiring intellectual property rights and controlling the seed market. Patented seeds can incur financial encumbrance for small farmers, particularly in developing countries. Also, there is dispute regarding whether genome-edited crop products must be labeled. Some groups call for mandatory labeling to protect consumers rights to information and opting for these products while on the other hand, other groups express anxiety that labeling could lead to rejection by the public, thus hindering innovation. Varying regulatory policies across different countries engender major challenges to international trade and promotion of new technologies. For instance, in Europe, process-based perspective on GE crops contrasts with the predominantly product-based approach adopted in Brazil, Argentina and the USA. Such differing political choices and not scientific disparities are the principal drivers of disparate regulatory frameworks.Many of the world's populace lack adequate awareness of genome editing resulting in varying and complex public perceptions. A lack of discernment can lead to mistrust in genome-edited crops with some people associating these crops with the controversial GMOs. As a result, consumers display varied attitudes towards crop genome editing ranging from approval of valuable genome-edited foods such as in Japan to profound safety concerns. Some public associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) actively advocate against gene-edited crops, magnifying public misconceptions and influencing policies. Public approval or rejection pose important stumbling blocks to commercialization. Poor acceptance from food consumers and retailers can endanger the economic credibility of novel crop varieties irrespective of their benefits. Also, the various stumbling blocks regarding the use of genome editing technology including long-term outcomes, off-target effects and other associated issues are addressed. The major content of this review covers the current regulatory scenario, opportunities as well as challenges towards the adoption of genome edited crops for use by the population spanning countries such as North America and Europe in addition to the differing levels of consumer acceptance in these countries. Discrepancies pertaining to the regulatory approval schemes in several countries of the Northern part of the world will profoundly affect those of the Southern regions who have the most to benefit from these burgeoning novel technologies towards enhanced agricultural outcomes. In the article by Sato, entitled "Genome Editing and Genetic Modification in the Humanities and Social Sciences: A Bibliometric Comparison Using Web of Science," 2,962 academic articles published in the Web of Science database between 1950 and 2024 were analyzed and revealed that most of the genetic modification research pertains to agriculture, the environment, and policy, whereas genome editing research focused more on bioethics and medical applications. Furthermore, the author found that genetic modification topics focused on regulation, whereas genome editing focused on consumer acceptance, suggesting that each technology requires an independent form of dissemination to the general public.Similarly, "The decision to purchase genome edited food products by Iranian consumers: Theory of Planned Behavior as a social intervention tool" by Valizadeh and Karami, explored consumer attitude towards gene-edited food products. The authors found that public trust in gene-edited products and the perceived benefits of gene-edited products had positive and significant effects on the consumer behaviour and intention to purchase these products. The authors conclude that their study could provide a framework for future interventions that would improve consumer preference for food products that are genome edited.Vasquez et al., paper entitled "Canadian Consumer Preferences Regarding Gene-Edited Food Products" explores consumer transparency and limitations in information regarding genome edited food products. The authors found four main factors which strongly influence consumer perceptions: trust in the Canadian food safety system; food technology neophobia scores; knowledge of genetics; and self-knowledge of gene editing.Survey participants indicated that nutrition, price, and taste were the three most important values. The strongest contributing factor affecting willingness to consume is the environmental impact of the production of genome edited crops. Canadian consumers largely experience more trust in genome edited rather than genetically modified crop food technologies.Tachikawa and Matsuo's paper, "New Assemblages and Governance Issues Associated with Genome-Edited Crops" how genome editing technology is reshaping relationships between crops and neighboring wild species, as well as other organisms, is addressed.How these relationships can be parsed out as governance issues is addressed.In summary, the studies presented in this Research Topic enhance our understanding of how society is currently responding to the topic of genome editing in our food system.It will be intriguing to track how things unfold from here.