The guidelines will help ensure that labeling is truthful and informative. In addition to agency regulation, the companies that produce these foods conduct their own safety tests. Although the absolute safety of any food can never be guaranteed, consumers should rest assured that biotechnology remains one of the most extensively researched and reviewed agricultural developments in history. Extensive scientific research clearly indicates that biotech foods are safe. Food biotechnology uses what we know about genetics to improve food and how we produce it.
Genes are responsible for traits like a person's eye color or a vegetable's taste.
For example, using modern biotechnology, scientists can move genes for valuable traits from one plant or cell into another plant. In this way they can make a plant taste or look better, be more nutritious, protect itself from insects, or produce more food. Farmers will be able to grow more food on less land, scientists will be able to detect plant viruses and bacteria in foods earlier and more accurately than they can now, and we can expect more healthful foods in the future.