New plant varieties, whether developed with new or traditional breeding techniques, routinely undergo many years of testing and evaluation prior to commercialization to determine that the plants behave as expected under different environmental conditions. Plants that behave in unexpected or undesirable ways are eliminated from the breeding programs. Additionally, food from new plant varieties is routinely tasted and tested to ensure that it does not differ from food expected from that plant. The various foods developed using the new techniques that are nearing commercialization are being subjected to extensive chemical analyses and animal feeding studies. The policy statement contains a lengthy scientific discussion to guide plant developers in understanding the issues FDA considers important for ensuring the safety of foods from new plant varieties.
All plant breeding involves the genetic manipulation of plants.
There are hundreds of new plant varieties introduced every year in the U.S., and all have been genetically modified. FDA does not require labeling to describe what technique was used in the development of a new variety, and does not believe that the use of the newer techniques justifies a change in that policy. One difference between the new gene splicing techniques and other techniques is that the new techniques permit the introduction into a plant of genes from essentially any organism. At the same time, the gene splicing techniques enable such modifications to be performed in a directed and predictable fashion, without the simultaneous introduction of extraneous undesirable genes. When the technique is used to significantly change the composition of a food, then labeling will be required.