The Pew Charitable Trusts Awards $3 Million Grant to University of Richmond to Continue Food-Biotech Project
February 19, 2004
The Pew Charitable Trusts has awarded the University of Richmond a $3 million grant for the continuation of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.
Since its launch in 2001, the Pew Initiative has produced reports, issued briefs and sponsored conferences that examine controversial issues raised by applying genetic engineering to agriculture. Topics have included risks and benefits of current and future products of agricultural biotechnology, adequacy of the American regulatory system, and challenges of marketing genetically manipulated (GM) products in a global marketplace divided over their acceptance.
The grant will fund additional work by the initiative for the next two years, including reports on the American regulatory system and transgenic insects, conferences on transgenic animals and plant-made industrial products and fact sheets on state legislation and costs of agricultural biotechnology. (Transgenic organisms have DNA from other species.)
The initiative also will conduct consumer opinion polls, update fact sheets on U.S. and European trade issues and encourage debate of agricultural biotechnology issues.