Planting the future: opportunities and challenges for using ... - EASAC

Summary
Agriculture faces major challenges to deliver food
security at a time of increasing pressures from climate
change, social and economic inequity and instability, and
the continuing need to avoid further loss in ecosystem
biodiversity. The introduction of new EU legislation
requiring farmers to reduce reliance on crop protection
chemicals creates additional challenges for maintaining
levels of crop productivity.
Previous European Union (EU) agricultural policy had
focused on constraining food production but there
is a new realisation that the EU should now increase
its biomass production for food, livestock feed and
other uses, including renewable materials to support
the bioeconomy. The production of more food, more
sustainably, requires the development of crops that
can make better use of limited resources. Agricultural
innovation can capitalise on the rapid pace of advance
in functional genomics research and it is unwise to
exclude any technology a priori for ideological reasons.
Sustainable agricultural production and food security
must harness the potential of biotechnology in all its
facets.
In previous work, the European Academies Science
Advisory Council (EASAC) has described the opportunities
and challenges in using plant genetic resources in
improved breeding approaches, for example by using
marker-assisted selection of desired traits. In the
present report, EASAC explores some of the issues
associated with the genetic modification of crops,
where the EU has fallen behind in its adoption of the
technology, compared with many other regions of the
world. Concerns have been expressed that a timeconsuming
and expensive regulatory framework in the
EU, compounded by politicisation of decision-making
by Member States and coupled with other policy
inconsistencies, has tended to act as an impediment to
agricultural innovation. Controversies about the impact
of genetically modified (GM) crops have too often been
based on contested science or have confounded effects
of the technology with the impact of agriculture per se
or changes in agronomic practice. It is vital to address
the policy disconnects because there is a wide range
of opportunities in prospect for improving agricultural
productivity and efficiency, environmental quality and
human health, by using all available technologies where
appropriate.
Previous work by member academies of EASAC has
documented where there is excellent, relevant science
to be nurtured and used, and where problems have
arisen because of the failure to use science to inform the
modernisation of regulatory approaches to benefit–risk
assessment. The goal of the present report is to clarify
the implications for policy-makers of alternative strategic
choices in using the tools, collectively termed crop genetic
improvement technologies, for delivering sustainable
agriculture. Our analysis of the international evidence
draws on two main work streams:
• A case study comparison of certain countries (in the
Americas and Asia) who have taken a different path
by their decision to adopt GM crops more actively.
We review the documented impacts in terms of
environmental and socio-economic indicators, and
the implications for the science base, and note that
comparing different regulatory approaches used
elsewhere might offer new insight for EU policymakers.
• A collaboration with the Network of African Science
Academies (NASAC) to ascertain the current situation
regarding crop genetic improvement strategies in
African countries and the implications of EU practices
and perspectives on decisions in Africa. The situation
across Africa is diverse but there are now major
initiatives to use GM crops to address local needs.
There is evidence that European influences have
sometimes constrained the use of such technologies
in Africa but there are significant opportunities for
international partnership, informed by local priorities
and acting to strengthen local systems.
The EASAC Working Group also provided detailed
evaluation of a broad range of current issues within
the EU, relating to regulatory reform, consequences
for the science base and new technology development
(particularly, the New Breeding Techniques), public
engagement, intellectual property and open innovation,
increasing environmental challenges, the potential food
crop pipeline and new applications for the bioeconomy.
This broad review of issues revealed several serious
inconsistencies in current EU policy. For example, an
important objective to reduce pesticide use in agriculture
is being implemented without sufficient attention paid
to facilitating the development of alternative methods
for protecting crops from pests and diseases. Bringing
together analysis of the cross-cutting issues for the EU
and the international evidence, the EASAC Working
Group reached four main conclusions, with extensive
implications for ascertaining greater coherence in policymaking.
These are described below.
1. Land use and innovation: the EU needs to increase
its production and productivity of plant-derived biomass
for food, feed and other applications, thereby decreasing
dependency on imports and reducing the regional and
global environmental impact. Commitment to agricultural
innovation can be expected also to create jobs, benefit
EASAC Planting the future | June 2013 | 1