To the editor:

As concerned plant scientists at major plant science research institutions in Japan, we would like to express our collective concern over the impact of Japanese public resistance to plant genetic engineering on the actions of local and national government. We are concerned that negative public sentiment could translate into government actions that will compromise overall competitiveness and research and development capability in the plant sciences.

For example, at the prefecture level, the local government in Hokkaido (a major region of agriculture) is currently formulating a bill scheduled for 2005 to ban planting genetically modified (GM) crops approved by the national Japanese authorities. The Tokyo metropolitan government and local farmers have already stopped the field assessment of a transgenic potato line at an experimental field in Tanashi city, Tokyo, apparently solely on the basis of negative public perception. These actions appear to have been prompted by unsubstantiated fears that such planting might affect the local agriculture economy1. We fear that they bring Japanese plant science closer to a critical situation in which research not only in the field but also in the laboratory will be threatened. At the national level, negative public sentiment may also affect funding allocation by the Japanese government in the plant sciences as a whole.

We urge Japanese political leaders not to abandon a technology that is readily being adopted by countries outside of Europe and could positively contribute to economic growth in Japan. Politicians have a responsibility to respect and honor the concerns of their electorate, but also should respect scientific consensus that genetic engineering is as safe as any other technology.