ISAAA Upgrades GM Approval Database

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) has added another helpful feature in its online GM Approval Database that will allow users to access useful information on approved biotech crop varieties.

The new section of the GM Approval Database provides links to more detailed description of the genetic modification events, risk assessment documents, regulatory decisions, expert opinions and methods of detecting events or genetic elements. Users will be directed to the original source of information or document they wish to download.

The GM Approval Database currently holds information for 328 unique events representing 26 biotech crops with regulatory approval in at least one country for food/feed use or commercial cultivation. Links to more than 2,000 regulatory documents and related information are provided.The numbers are expected to grow every year.

ISAAA started a makeover of its biotech crop database late last year in an effort to enhance the utility of information about biotech crops that have been cleared by regulatory authorities around the world. The GM Approval Database has become ISAAA's way of telling the world that biotech crops get supported in countries where farming communities and food-based industries would benefit from GM technology. ISAAA plans to implement more improvements to make the database more helpful and easy to use for the interest of various stakeholders and the general public.