• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.215-220
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• 2016

The global cultivation area of genetically modified crops (GM crops) has been increasing every year. Cultivation of GM crops is not only beneficial to the economy but also has positive effects on the environment in decreasing the use of agrochemicals, chemical fertilizers, and agricultural machinery. However, there have been controversies about the admixture of GM crops and non-GM crops and the unintentional release of GM crops to the environment. Especially in Korea, where consumption of agricultural products is import-dependent, the economic importance of GM crops has been a significant issue. The Act on import and distribution of GM crops was established in 2001 to start the management of GM crops in Korea. Recently, the imported amount of GM crops to Korea has reached over 10 million tons and is increasing very rapidly; consequently, the potential environmental impact of GM crops is becoming a big issue in Korea. In Japan, the discovery of imported GM canola plants around ports in 2005 raised awareness of the unintentional release of GM crops. In Korea, GM maize plants were also found in port and feed factory surroundings from 2005 to 2007. It is now necessary to monitor imported GM crops by tracing distribution, transport process for practical environmental risk assessment. Possible gene transfer from GM crops to non-GM crops should also be investigated in the cultivation area and the surroundings as well.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.147-150
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• 2016

Global GM crops continue to grow. They have reached 181 million hectares. A total of 28 countries have approved biotech crops for planting. More than 60 countries have approved biotech crops to be imported as food and feed since 1996, meaning that biotech crops are now commonly accepted in those countries. Although biotech crops provide key solutions for the challenge of global food security in the future due to population growth and climate change, there are still some debates on whether biotech crops should be accepted in many countries including Korea. Therefore, it is very important to make people understand that GM crops will provide benefits to both farmers and consumers. In this review, current global status of GM crop development and commercialization are summarized.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.261-267
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• 2009

The coexistence policy of GM and non-GM crops is still on the debates in EU since “the recommendation on guidelines for the development of national strategies and best practices to ensure the coexistence of GM crops with conventional and organic farming” has been reported in 2003. The major issues are maximum tolerance level of GMO admixture and minimum isolation distances of GM fields with others including conventional, organic and seeds production. Majority of member states in EU proposed that the tolerance level of GMO admixture must be more strictly controlled, in particular in the fields for organic crops and seeds production. To this end, it was proposed that minimum isolation distances to segregate GM crops from fields with organic crops and seeds production need to be further extended than those of conventional crops since cross pollination with other crops adjacent GM fields is known as the most prevalent source for GMO contamination. In these circumstances, it is strongly suggested that the current legislations need to be revised including the minimum isolation distances of fields for each species before field cultivation for a commercial GM crop is approved for the first time in South Korea.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.106-114
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• 2009

Genetic components introduced into approved GM crops are a key subject for safety assessment and provide a basis for the development of detection methods for GM crops. In order to understand the genetic components in approved GM crops comprehensively, we screened the genetic vector maps of GM crops that had been approved for commercialization around the world. A total of 64 varieties from 5 major GM crop species (maize, canola, cotton, soybean, and tomato) were subjected to analysis. The genetic components included genes, promoters, terminators, and selection marker. This survey may be useful for researchers who develop GM crops and methods for detecting GM crops.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.245-256
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• 2008

The current legislation in South Korea clearly states that the tolerance threshold on the adventitious presence of GMO in environment-friendly agricultural products is 3.0% and no GM seed should be detected in their planting seed batches. To date, in Korea, there is no approved GM crop for commercial cultivation in field. However, several GM crops including rice, Chinese cabbage, potato and wild turf grass are currently under risk assessment for their environmental release. Also Korean government (Rural Development Administration, RDA) announced that 11 institutes including universities have been currently certified to carry out a risk assessment of GM crops. Meanwhile, the cultivated area and certified quantities of environment-friendly crops (organic, pesticide-free and low-pesticide) are sharply increasing every year according to the report of National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service (NAQS). In detail, in 2007, the certified quantities of environment-friendly agricultural products were elevated up to 100-fold for organic, 171-fold for pesticide-free and 2,324-fold for low-pesticide crops when compared with those in 1999. The total certified quantity of environment-friendly cereal crops in 2007 was equivalent to 6.4% of total production of cereal crops. Moreover, 24% of total production of root and tuber crops such as potato and sweet potato were certified for environment-friendly agricultural products. In these circumstances, I strongly suggest that current legislations on GM crop's safety management should be revised to include strategies for the coexistence of GM with non-GM crops, especially environment-friendly crops before GM crop is approved to be cultivated for commercialization. Since all types of crops are grown in an open environment, the adventitious presence of GM crops among non-GM crops is inevitable if appropriate measures for coexistence are not established for species by species such as isolation distance, workable management measures to minimize admixture.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.125-129
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• 2011

Environmental risk assessment (RA) is essential prior to the environmental release of GM crops. RA, however, costs at least 7 to 15 million US dollars and requires several years to complete field tests. Therefore, it is strongly suggested that developers of GM crops must consider all criteria for RA at the beginning stage of the development if it aims for commercialization. Previous review papers have pointed out that the "death valley" for the commercialization of GM crops is the screening stage of early GM events since many candidates are given up due to insufficient data on the molecular characterization of a GM event such as inserted gene's copy number, position of inserted site of a chromosome, flanking sequence of recombinant T-DNA, rearrangement of chromosome, and knock out of endogenous gene of host plant. Recently, Rural Development Administration (RDA) in South Korea has launched a Grand National Project named as "Next Generation of BioGreen 21 Project" from 2011 to 2020 and research funding for the development of global GM crops has been allocated to accelerate the commercialization of GM crops. In this regard, I strongly suggest that researchers involved in the development of GM crops for commercialization must conduct RA by themselves at the screening stage of pre-GM event based on the data for molecular characterization.

• Weed & Turfgrass Science
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.221-224
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• 2014

Genetically modified (GM) crops are not permitted to be cultivated in Korea, but can only be imported as food or feed purposes. The import of GM crops has sharply increased in recent years, thus raising concerns with regard to the unintentional escape of these crops during transport and manufacturing as well as the subsequent contamination of local, non-GM plants. Hence, monitoring of GM crops was studied in or outside of grain receiving ports as well as from feed-processing plants in Korea during July 2008. We observed spilled maize grains and established plants primarily in storage facilities that are exposed around the harbors and near transportation routes of the feed-processing areas. Based on the PCR analyses, a total of 17 GM maize plants and 11 seeds were found among the samples. In most cases, the established maize plants found in this study were at the vegetative stage and thus failed to reach the reproductive stage. This study concludes that, in order to prevent a genetic admixture in the local environment for GM crops or seeds, frequent monitoring work and proper action should be taken.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.127-132
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• 2012

We analysed the current status of development of GM crops and national biosafety framework including legislation-related agricultural GMO in China to provide the policy for the development of global GM crops in Korea. In China, several GM crops including cotton, petunia, tomato, sweet pepper, poplar, and papaya have been approved for commercialization and they have been cultivated at more than 4 million ha. In addition, GM rice and GM maize have also obtained approval for productive testing in 2009. China will be the first country to approve GM rice for commercialization. Prior to commercialization in China, all GM crops must be approved by government authority for biosafety assessment specified by national legislation including restricted field testing, enlarged field testing, productive testing and safety certificate. According to China's legislation, agricultural GMOs have been classified by research and testing, production and processing. All GMOs must go through 3 steps of field testing (restricted, enlarged and productive). Prior to conducting each field testing, it has to be approved by government authority. It is assumed that at least one to two years will be taken for each step of field testing (total 4 to 8 years to obtain the final safety certificate) along with a large amount of budget.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.261-272
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• 2020

Approvals for cultivation and import of genetically modified (GM) crops have dramatically increased around the world. Comparative compositional studies are an important aspect of safety assessments of products from GM crops and are based on substantial equivalence. Compositional analyses focus on determining similarities and differences between the compositions of the GM crops and their conventional counterparts, and thereby assessing the compositional equivalence of GM crops and their conventional comparators. The analytes, such as major constituents, key nutrients, and antinutrients, are generally determined on a crop-specific basis according to the OECD consensus document. The use of standard methods throughout the processes, such as selection of comparators, field trials, analytical methods, and statistical data analysis, is crucial. In this study, we showed the general framework of compositional studies. Literature for compositional studies of GM crops conducted abroad and in Korea was reviewed to obtain information about analytes, conventional counterparts, cultivation year, location, and statistical methods. The studies conducted abroad assessed for commercial release of GM crops such as soybean, maize, and cotton, while domestic studies were mainly performed for research in rice. In addition, we suggested a guidance for conventional comparators and field trials applicable to the domestic situation.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.115-123
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• 2009

In recent years, several genetically modified (GM) crops have been developed worldwide through the recombinant DNA technology and commercialized by various agricultural biotechnological companies. Commercialization of GM crops will be required the assesment of risks associated with the release of GM crops. In advance of the commercial release of GM crops, developer should submit the several information on GM crops for approval. In this study, we carried out to provide the molecular data for the risk assessment of GM rice containing insect-resistant gene, modified Cry1Ac (CryIAc1). Through the molecular analysis with CryIAc1 induced GM rice, we confirmed the steady integration and expression of transgene, the transgene copy number, the adjacent region sequences of inserted gene into rice genome, and the transgene stability in progenies. For the qualitative PCR detection methods, specific primer pairs were designed on the basis of integration sequences, and construct- and event-specific detection markers were developed for leaf folder-resistant rice, Cr7-1 line. From these results, we demonstrated that the molecular data and the PCR detection methods of leaf folderresistant GM rice could be acceptable to conduct the biosafety and environment risk assessment.