World population, now 6 billion, is ex-pected to reach 8 billion people by the year 2025 and maybe 9-10 billion by the year 2050 with around 97% of this popula-tion growth occurring in the developing coun-tries (Fedoroff and Cohen 1999 and references therein). To face the challenge posed by the need to feed this huge increase in population, food production will have to double or triple by the middle of the next century. These challenges can-not be faced with the so-called traditional tech-nologies in agriculture, and the new technologies, known collectively as biotechnology, will be es-sential to reach these goals.However, although in principle most people with a certain knowledge of the potential of bio-technology agree with these statements, most of the people living in either the industrial or devel-oping countries have not yet seen any product derived from this new technology benefiting them directly as consumers, either through lower prices for products or improved nutritional quality.This has led many consumer associations and environmental groups to find unjustified any possible risk to the environment posed by the introduction of genetically improved organisms (GIOs), given the apparent lack of benefit to soci-ety. In most societies there are groups that will not trust either industry or the regulatory agen-cies that they perceive as allied to the chemical industry, often now bioscience companies.