Development of Strategic Monitoring Programs for Ecological Impact from Plant-Incorporated-Protectants (PIPs)

Objective/Intended Use

The goal is to explore potential strategies for identifying the key risks of concern and appropriate risk management technologies to mitigate these key risks when the monitoring studies indicate unintended adverse consequences.

Abstract

Historically, monitoring programs in association with field releases of genetically modified organisms have been, explicitly or implicitly, called for as a part of risk assessment/management schemes or regulatory agenda. However, it is often not clear what should be monitored, why, or for how long. Recommendations of objectives and methodologies were made with little understanding of their scientific legitimacy. Monitoring for the development of insect resistance to pesticidal proteins--identified as early as 1991--provides the single best example of science-based monitoring program development. This is, however, only one of many potential ecological concerns associated with GM crops and often the decision as to what to monitor for has depended as much on what was possible to monitor as it has on the identified concern.
This illustrates a monitoring paradox: On one hand, new problems cannot be predicted and on the other hand if we can predict problems, they are not new. While wide-ranging, non-specific monitoring programs to detect new or unique effects of genetic engineering are being suggested, such monitoring may be quite expensive and inefficient. It will be most helpful to decision makers and those who will be charged with the design and implementation of monitoring programs, to know explicitly what should be monitored, the reason behind the concern(s) that generated the need for monitoring, appropriate methods for conducting the monitoring, and the purpose for the data to be collected. Well done risk assessments, along with providing the argument for establishing appropriate levels of monitoring, will address these four categories of information needs. For this project, NCEA will explore the current state-of-the-science of environmental monitoring as it applies to PIP crops and correlate the promise and short comings as risk assessment tools. Expected output: Report of Symposium on Strategic Monitoring for Ecological Impacts from Crops with Plant Incorporated Protection

Project Status

Project is just beginning.