Building public trust and acceptance towards spray-on RNAi biopesticides: lessons from current ethical, legal and social discourses.

Advances in New Plant Breeding Techniques (NBTs), particularly spray-on RNA interference (RNAi) biopesticides, necessitates a reevaluation of existing regulatory and governance frameworks. While spray-on RNAi technologies offer promising solutions for sustainable crop protection and targeted pest control without altering plant genomes, they also raise important ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI). This paper explores current ELSI discourses surrounding spray-on RNAi biopesticides, such as issues of environmental risk, regulatory ambiguity, corporate control and public acceptance. The study also highlights the importance to incorporate trust as an ethical element in developing regulatory and governance framework for the RNAi technology to increase public acceptance toward the technology. These findings contribute to the broader discourse on the governance of novel biotechnologies in agriculture, offering guidance for future regulatory design tailored to the unique characteristics of spray-on RNAi-based interventions.