Food safety and plant breeding â why are there no problems in practice?

Niels Louwaars

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Food safety and plant breeding â why are there no problems in practice?

In: The functional field of food law

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Niels Louwaars

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 87â101

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086868858_007

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Our health depends to a significant extent on the food that we eat. All food can be considered plant-based. Plants are complex biochemical factories producing large numbers of compounds. Several of these compounds have emerged in nature to protect plants from predators. Some of these are poisonous to mammals, including us. Humankind has selected plants species that produce nutritious food and has bypassed the obviously poisonous ones. However, relatives of our food crops may be poisonous, and changes in the genetic makeup of our crop species in the course of evolution and especially during the accelerated evolution called plant breeding, might well produce poisonous compounds. Why have we seen a negligible number of food poisoning casualties from plant breeding over the past century? Are there reasons to believe that the future will be different? Should the law step in beyond the general food law to protect consumers? These questions are raised in the context of technological developments in plant breeding. This paper describes the history of plant breeding and provides arguments why significant food safety problems have not occurred. We then compare the latest breeding techniques with earlier ones and conclude that extensive food safety testing will likely not contribute to further reducing food safety hazards, and instead carries significant risks in reducing the benefits of plant breeding towards sustainable agriculture and food security.

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The functional field of food law

Reconciling the market and human rights

Series:Â European Institute for Food Law series, Volume: 11

E-Book ISBN:: 9789086868858

Publisher:: Wageningen Academic

Print Publication Date:: 28 Nov 2019

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- Life Sciences

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Food safety and plant breeding â why are there no problems in practice?

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The functional field of food law

Reconciling the market and human rights

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Food safety and plant breeding â why are there no problems in practice?