Browse Data and Analysis

Romania is one of the European Union’s (EU) most progressive and pro-science Member States (MSs) regarding agricultural biotechnology. Currently, Romanian farmers cultivate no commercial biotech crops, but they widely use imported genetically engineered (GE) soybean meal as a livestock feed ingredient.

There have been no recent significant official changes to the genetically engineered (GE) policies established by the New Zealand government.

Saudi regulations allow the importation of biotech plant products, but they are required to be labeled if they contain more than one percent genetically engineered (GE) plant ingredients.

In 2009, Serbia adopted the current “Law on Genetically Engineered Organisms (GEOs),” which strictly prohibits importing, producing, or commercial growing genetically engineered crops. After more than ten years, Serbia still has not implemented changes to this “Law on GEOs” that conforms to European Union (EU) regulations or the World Trade Organization (WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement.

South Africa has a robust and experienced regulatory system for genetically engineered (GE) products, which started with the publication of its “GMO” Act in 1997. Today, South Africa is among the top-10 largest producers of GE crops in the world and by far the largest in Africa.

The Government of Tanzania (GoT) uses a conservative, precautionary approach to manage genetically engineered (GE) products.

In 2021, Vietnam completed its approvals for the outstanding product applications for food and feed import. Vietnam continues to benefit from biotech corn as a sustainable tool in the fight against fall army worm (FAW) and increased the production area to more than one hundred thousand hectares (ha) in 2020/2021.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) has yet to send the draft Biodiversity Law, which includes biosafety regulations covering research, field trial, and commercialization for genetically engineered plant, animal, and microorganisms, to the Cabinet for approval.

Tunisia postponed non-urgent reforms throughout 2021 due to an unstable political environment and the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, there is no timeframe for Parliament to review and vote on Tunisia’s biosafety framework, and so the policy, which was drafted in 2014, remains on hold.

The Government of Senegal is still reviewing and revising its new biosafety law which may include language for an expedited approval process for certain genetically engineered (GE) products.

The biotechnology regulatory system in Ukraine is still not fully developed, but the country has committed to shape its policy in line with European Union’s regulations.

On November 12, 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) published its "Decision to Revise the Administrative Measures for the Safety Assessment of Agricultural GMOs” on its website.