The Economics of Regulating New Plant Breeding Technologies - Implications for the Bioeconomy Illustrated by a Survey Among Dutch Plant Breeders

Abstract

New plant breeding technologies (NPBTs) are increasingly used for developing new plants with novel traits. The science tells us that those plants in general are as safe as than those once developed using "conventional" plant breeding methods. The knowledge about the induced changes and properties of the new plants by using NPBTs is more precise. This should lead to the conclusion that plants developed using NPBTs should not be regulated differently than those developed using "conventional" plant breeding methods. This contribution discusses the economics of regulating new plant breeding technologies. We first develop the theoretical model and elaborate on the different regulatory approaches being used and compare their advantages and disadvantages. Then we provide a perspectives on EU regulation around mutagenesis-based New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBT), formed by new insights from a survey among Dutch plant breeding companies. The survey measures the attitude of breeding companies towards the ruling of the EU Court of Justice that subjected the use of CRISPR-Cas in the development of new plant varieties under the general EU regulations around GMOs. The results show that plant breeders experience a financial barrier because of the ruling, with perceived negative impact on competitiveness and investments in CRISPR-Cas as a result. The degree of negative impact differs however significantly among seed-sectors and company sizes. One of the most striking results was the relative optimism of companies in the sector about more lenient legislation in the next five years, despite the stated negative effects.

Development of the Circular Bioeconomy: Drivers and Indicators

“…The debate on the use of modern biotechnology has been rekindled by the advent of so-called new plant breeding technologies (NPBTs) for gene editing and related regulatory issues. The regulatory status affects further advances of the CRISPRbased technologies, one of the most important gene-editing tools, as it may disincentivize investments and bring companies to reallocate their research out of the EU [14,22]. In a comparison of the worldwide CRISPR patent landscape by Martin-Laffon et al [23], it is already apparent that Europe is lagging behind the United States and China.…”

Potential, Challenges, and Threats for the Application of New Breeding Techniques by the Private Plant Breeding Sector in the EU

“…Also, some projects did not start as a consequence of the ECJ ruling in 2018. The Dutch study confirms a strong negative effect of the ECJ ruling on the investments in CRISPR-Cas technology especially for the vegetable sector (Wesseler et al, 2019).…”

“…Having R&D facilities outside the EU allows more flexibility when it comes to transferring NBT-related R&D activities including field trials to geographies with enabling regulatory environments. This is confirmed by a study from University of Wageningen scientists who did a survey among Dutch breeding companies showing that companies with major markets outside the EU intend to reallocate their research (Wesseler et al, 2019). The European Green Deal and its Farm to Fork Strategy requires EU agriculture to become more sustainable by reducing the amount of pesticides by 50%, and the amount of fertilizers by 20% until 2030 while taking 10% of farmland out of production and increasing the EU organic farming area with the aim to achieve 25% of total farmland under organic farming by 2030 (EU Commission Communication, 2020).…”

EU Regulation of New Plant Breeding Technologies and their Possible Economic Implications for the EU and Beyond

“…At the same time, it increases the likelihood that international plant breeders will relocate their research from Europe to other places. Plant-breeding companies that do not develop crops only for the EU market now have even stronger incentives to relocate their research to other regions, like the Americas (Wesseler, Politiek, and Zilberman 2019) or China. The risks associated with importing food and feed into the EU are likely to be distributed along the food and feed supply chain increasing the price.…”