Giving Compass' Take:

• The Food and Drug Administration recently lifted an import ban, allowing the first commercially raised GMO animal to come to market: salmon. 

• How can donors understand the full scope of GMOs and the role they play when it comes to nutrition and food security? 

• To understand the opposition towards GMOs, click here. 

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration lifted an import restriction that allowed AquaBounty, a biotech company with facilities in Canada and Panama, to start raising genetically engineered (GMO) salmon eggs in America, effectively clearing the way for the country’s first GMO seafood—and first commercially raised GMO animal—to come to market.

AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage salmon, which has been in development since the 1990s, is already available in Canada. The company’s proprietary breed of fish is modified to contain genes from Chinook salmon and an eel-like creature called an ocean pout, which allows it to grow twice as fast, on less food, than a normal Atlantic salmon.

When FDA approved the fish in 2015, the agency found it had no health or safety issues, and displayed no material or nutritional difference from traditional Atlantic salmon. So why hasn’t the AquAdvantage yet been available at stores in the U.S.?

Read the full article on introducing GMO salmon to America by Sam Bloch at The New Food Economy