The use of biotechnology in the agri-food sector between unsurpassed prejudices and expectations of economic exploitation

Abstract

In Italy still remains a strict opposition to the cultivation of  Genetic ally 
Modified  Organisms (GMO), despite the presence of Community rules particularly careful
in reducing the eventual risks, for environment and human health, which could  derive from 
their  cultivation  and  consumption for food purposes. The everlasting absence of
indisputable proof of scientific evidence, not merely hypothetical, on the severity and
irreversibility of the damage caused by the use of these products should, on the other hand,
lead to a reasonable application of the precautionary principle so to allow the economic
utilization, in the field of agro-food industry, of the opportunities offered by
genetic research.