Pakistan has deferred decisions on several genetically modified (GM) crop applications, including soybean imports, corn biosafety licences and cotton-related cases, after the National Biosafety Committee sought clearer recommendations from its technical panel.
The decision was taken during the 38th meeting of the National Biosafety Committee (NBC) at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination.
The committee found that recommendations submitted by the 45th meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) did not provide clear enough conclusions for final decisions.
It sent the pending cases back to the TAC for further review and directed it to submit clear recommendations.
The agenda included approvals for soybean meal imports for food, feed and processing, renewal of biosafety licences for genetically modified corn, and several cotton-related applications.
The committee also discussed the hold on the commercialization of genetically modified corn and other biotech food crops.
A representative of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research said the government had suspended commercialization activities for biotech food crops in 2019 until a comprehensive policy framework was developed.
The representative said the policy gap had since been addressed through the approval and notification of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Policy 2025, which establishes a regulatory framework for assessing and commercializing agricultural biotechnology products.
Authorities have been informed to proceed under the approved policy, according to the briefing.
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