Abstract
Introduction: Cereals constitute the backbone of global food security and play a pivotal role in supplying calories and protein to the world’s rapidly growing population. As environmental challenges intensify, including climate change, water scarcity, and increasing biotic and abiotic stresses, genetic engineering technologies, ranging from conventional transgenes is in crop plants to advanced genome-editing systems such as CRISPR/Cas9, have emerged as strategic tools for improving crop productivity and quality. Nevertheless, despite their considerable technological potential, the integration of these innovations into agricultural production systems continues to face complex challenges related to food safety, environmental risks, and profound disparities in regulatory policies across countries. The present study was conducted to provide a comprehensive analysis of these challenges and to offer an updated overview of the current state of knowledge in this field.
Materials and Methods: This study employed a critical review approach to synthesize the available scientific evidence concerning food safety, environmental risk assessment, and regulatory frameworks governing genetically engineered cereals. Literature retrieval was conducted using major scientific databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed, with emphasis placed on core thematic keywords. Inclusion criteria comprised scientific credibility, direct relevance to the topic, and reliance on experimental findings or authoritative international reports issued by organizations such as the WHO, FAO, and EFSA. The analysis focused particularly on issues including gene flow, unintended metabolomic alterations, impacts on non-target organisms, and differences between regulatory approaches applied to transgenic products and genome-edited crops.
Findings: The findings of this review indicate that genetically engineered crops, when subjected to rigorous scientific management and case-by-case evaluation, possess