Genetically Modified Organisms and Innovation Policy are Key Weapons in Fight against Hunger

The introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the food system and the assignment of intellectual property rights (IPRs) for plant genetic resources are among the most notable features of the increasingly industrialized agri-food marketing system of numerous, developed and developing, countries around the world. IPRs have provided innovating firms with incentives to aggressively pursue improvements of crop characteristics (such as herbicide tolerance, insect and virus resistance, drought tolerance, and increased nutritional value) through gene splicing techniques, and the agronomic benefits of the GM products have resulted in their embrace by a significant number of agricultural producers around the world