3rd International Poultry Meat Congress

O 16 Recent Developments in GMOs and Challenges in Turkey
Selim Çetiner
Sabanci University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, İstanbul, Turkey
cetiner@sabanciuniv.edu
Abstract
The new millenium we are living is also called the age of life scineces because of the rapid
discoveries in biological sciences. Genetically modified organisms are not only used in
agricultural production but also in medicine, industry and other aspects of everyday life. While
the use of GMOs in medicine and industry are accepted in general, the public reaction against the
use of GMOs in agriculture is rather high. These reactions are usually ideological or emotional as
each GMO is commercialized only after passing rigorous safety asseessment procedures based
on scientific methods. While discussions are going on GMO safety, now with the development
of new plant breeding techiques debate has been started on whether these new plants should be
subjected to the same science based risk assessments. If so, this would block the public research
and SEM scientists in developing new plants and commercialize them.
As we have witnessed so far, despite wide acceptance of GMOs in certain countries due to
benefits for farmers and the environment, rejection of GMO cultivation in countries like Turkey
has brought financial burden not only on farmers but also the whole of food production industry.
The cost of Biosafety Law and its implementation has been estimated around 1 billion USD.
If the Biosafety Law and its imlementation would not been changed to comply with the
international and EU biosafety legislation, the agricultural and food production sectors will be
negatively affected and while GMO opponents will benefit the most.
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