June 24, 2004
'Plants for the future': A European vision for plant
biotechnology towards 2025
Today, the "Plants for the Future"
European Technology Platform on plant genomics and
biotechnology, launches a new era for plant biotechnology in
Europe.
This
long term vision for 2025 has been created by leading
representatives from research (such as EPSO, the European Plant
Science Organisation), the food and biotech industry (such as
EuropaBio, CIAA, ESA), the farming community (such as
COPA/COGECA) and consumer organisations (BEUC). The vision
document has been presented to European Commissioner Busquin.
"Our
society faces tremendous challenges in the coming decades. There
will be an increased demand for healthier, higher quality and
more diverse food. The need for animal feed will grow.
Agricultural production needs to become more environmentally
friendly: maintaining productivity while reducing inputs
including water, pesticides, fertilisers, energy. The issue of
economical sustainability will necessitate the development of
novel biomaterials, bioenergy and renewable resources.
Agriculture will also face consequences of climatic changes
causing drought and spread of diseases to new areas of Europe
and beyond. It is imperative that we enable developing countries
to achieve self-sufficiency and become more competitive and,
together with North America, to contribute to meeting the
growing global food demands," says Marc Zabeau, chair of EPSO.
These immense challenges can be met by prioritizing basic and
applied research goals that are tailored to the needs of
European society and the agriculture and the food industries.
The expertise and capabilities of European plant scientists also
need to be effectively harnessed to generate a more profound
understanding of plant biology. Together this new set of
capabilities and priorities will enable key characteristics such
as improved quality and nutrition, sustainable production, safe
co-existence, and improved yield, harvestability, processability
and environmental stability to be created, Novel public- private
partnerships will also need to be created to develop these
products and bring them to market.
"EPSO and EuropaBio will develop this Technology Platform in the
framework of an EU supported project that started on 1st June
2004. We aim to broaden the stakeholder forum, to articulate the
Long Term Strategic Research Agenda 2025 and the Action Plan
2010 and discuss these with member states," says Karin Metzlaff,
Director of EPSO. "These activities are also a key step towards
implementing a long-term research policy for Europe at European,
national and regional levels."
EPSO
hopes that this initiative will attract young talented
researchers and entrepreneurs as well as public and private
funding into this sector of science and industry to the benefit
of science and society in Europe and beyond.
1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
At
the initiative of the European Commission, leading
representatives from the food and biotech industry, research,
farming community and consumers' organisations developed a
long-term strategy for European plant biotechnology towards
2025. The outcome is a vision paper on "Plants for the future"
which will be presented on 24 June 2004 in Brussels. The 2025
vision paper will form the basis for establishing a technology
platform on plant biotechnology in co-operation with all
stakeholders.
"European researchers and small companies have pioneered the
development of modern plant biotechnology" said European
Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin. "In recent years,
however, European investment in plant genomics and biotechnology
has stalled, partly as a result of a lack of communication to
the public of the potential benefits of this technology.
Defining and implementing a proper regulatory framework has also
taken its time. Since this framework is now largely in place we
urgently need to take action to reverse the exodus of European
researchers and companies and to strengthen the European
knowledge base in this area to maintain competitiveness of
European agro-food and related industries".
A Green Economy
The
vision paper stresses the huge economic importance of plants and
plant derived products in Europe in terms of turnover and
employment of related industries:
-
There
are nearly 7 million farms, with an average size of 18.4
hectares and employing nearly 15 million people, in the 15
older EU Member States (EU15). With enlargement, the number of
farms has more than doubled to 17 million, and the proportion
of farmers in the workforce has grown from around 4% (EU15) to
nearly 8% (EU25).
-
Livestock production in Europe consumes 400 million tonnes of
feed, including grazing land, of which 90% is produced in
Europe.
-
The
EU25 food and drink is the leading EU industrial sector with
close to €700 billion annual turnover and employing about 3
million Europeans.
-
The
European seed market, worth €8.4 billion annually, is the
largest regional market (30% of the global market)/
-
European forestry and its related industries employ more than
3.5 million people with an annual turnover of over €200
billion.
-
Europe currently accounts for only 10% of the fast-growing
markets for crop-derived fibres and raw materials, which
increased globally from 50.9 to 70 million tons over the past
five years.
"Advances in plant biotechnology research will have a strong
impact both on the future competitiveness and the sustainability
of these important European industries" said European Research
Commissioner Philippe Busquin.
Towards a sustainable European agriculture and
knowledge-based bio-economy
The
"Plants for the future" vision paper not only stresses the
economic importance of plants and plant derived products, but
also outlines important challenges at European and global levels
that calls for renewed attention to plants:
-
A growing world population
coupled to an increasing demand for a high quality, safe and
diverse food supply, and the need to ensure this demand is met
in a sustainable manner under the constraints of limited
availability of land, of climate change and seasonal
instabilities.
-
The limited availability of
fossil resources and its negative impact on climate and human
health which calls for a replacement of fossil-fuel based
non-renewable products with bio-products from renewable plant
resources.
"The
transition to a sustainable knowledge based bio-economy
utilising renewable plant resources for both food and non-food
products is as inevitable as it is desirable", said European
Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin.
The
vision paper highlights the important role of scientific and
technological progress in plant biotechnology and genomics in
achieving this transition, in particular the need to create a
new generation of crop plants that are more drought resistant
and stress tolerant, and crops with the potential for increased
productivity, with reduced inputs as fertilisers, pesticides and
water, to ensure long-term sustainability.
An ambitious research agenda
Research into plant genomics – handled with appropriate caution
and public support – can result in major benefits over the
coming decades. Through well-targeted basic research into plant
genomics and its biotechnological applications, we believe it is
possible to: Secure a healthy, high quality food/feed supply
-
Improve plant yield potential
and security
-
Increase the amount of useful
plant matter
-
Improve biodiversity in the
farmed landscape
-
Improve the genetic diversity of
crop plants
-
Reduce the environmental impact
of agriculture
-
Enhance crop monitoring
-
Improve crop co-existence
-
Develop renewable materials
-
Develop more efficient bio-fuels
Roadmap and milestones
The
Plants for the Future platform should promote basic research in
the field of plant genomics and biotechnology. It should focus
on EU-grown crops, develop applied research programmes in the
agro-food domain, and launch novel product-oriented R&D
projects. We recommend the following research milestones on the
road map to improve the sector:
Short and medium-term (to 2015)
-
Create integrated programmes in
basic plant science with a European dimension to support
long-term strategic goals.
-
Initiate coherent basic plant
genomics research programmes for the major EU-grown crops:
cereals, grain legumes, solanaceous species, major
oil-producing plants, and fruit and wood-producing trees
-
Launch research programmes aimed
at exploiting the knowledge flowing from plant genomics and
biotechnology to improve the sustainability of production,
co-existence, yield, harvestability, storability and
processability of the major EU-grown crops
-
Develop research programmes
focused on improving the nutritional contents of food and feed
crops
-
Promote public/private
partnerships to explore the development of novel agricultural,
food, energy and biomaterials products
In the medium and long-term (to 2025)
-
Establish a comprehensive
genomics knowledge base for all economically and strategically
important crops grown in the EU and their related genetic
resources
-
Develop enhanced phenotyping
tools and modelling methods for exploiting the genetic
diversity of important EU crops
-
Promote public/private
partnerships to develop superior crop varieties which meet the
requirements for sustainable production in an environmentally
friendly manner, while satisfying consumer preference for
healthy and safe food
-
Form collaborative programmes
with developing countries on crop genomics to promote
self-sufficiency, greater sustainability and competitiveness.
Europe's strategic priorities
The
stakeholders involved in drawing up the vision paper have
identified three major strategic priorities for Europe:
-
Produce better quality, healthy,
affordable, diverse food offering consumers in and beyond
Europe new options to improve their quality of life.
-
Bring about environmental and
agricultural sustainability, including the production of
biomaterials, bio-energy and renewable resources.
-
Enhance the competitiveness of
European agriculture, industry and forestry by establishing
integrated basic research projects at a European scale, to
create the foundations for future prosperity.
The
stakeholders call for the development and implementation of an
ambitious and detailed strategic research agenda in co-operation
with policy makers at EU, national and regional level and other
interested parties. Cornerstones of this research agenda are a
better understanding of plant metabolism, improved genetic
diversity of crop plants, improved co-existence and the
development of renewable biomaterials and more efficient
bio-fuels.
"Towards a European technology platform for plant
biotechnology"
"The
"Plants for the future" vision is very much in line with the
EU's objectives of becoming the most competitive and sustainable
knowledge-based economy by 2010" said Commissioner Busquin. "The
March 2003 European Council explicitly called for the
strengthening of the European research and innovation area to
the benefit of all in an enlarged Europe by creating technology
platforms bringing together all relevant stakeholders to develop
a strategic agenda for leading technologies, among them plant
genomics. This vision paper is an early milestone towards
realising this recommendation."
Stakeholders, policy makers at all levels and other interested
parties are invited to participate in the advisory council and
working groups of the platform, which will become fully
operational in the second half of 2004 and which will be
supported by a joint secretariat of EPSO, EuropaBio and the
European Commission.
The
mandate of the technology platform and its working groups will
be to develop a coherent strategic research agenda and detailed
action, which is expected to be available by the end of 2004.
2. SIGNATORIES (STAKEHOLDERS AND HIGH LEVEL
PERSONALITIES) SUPPORTING THE VISION
Philippe BUSQUIN, EU Research Commissioner
Feike SIJBESMA, President of EuropaBio, DSM board member
Marc ZABEAU, President European Plant Science Organisation, EPSO
Jim MURRAY, Director BEUC
Mohamed H.A. HASSAN, Executive Director of the Third World
Academy of Sciences
Federico MAYOR, former Director-General of UNESCO, Autonomous
University of Madrid, President of the Foundation for a Culture
of Peace, ES
Jean MARTIN, President of CIAA
Eggert VOSCHERAU, President of Cefic, Vice-chair of the board
BASF
Jochen WULFF, former CEO of Bayer CropScience
Pierre PAGESSE, Presidium Member of COGECA President of
Limagrain (FR)
Ricardo SERRA ARIAS, Vice-President of COPA, Vice-President of
ASAJA (ES)
Sten MOBERG, President European Seed Association, CEO Svalöf
Weibull Seed Group (SE)
Andrzej LEGOCKI, President of the Academy of Sciences, Poland
Richard B. FLAVELL, CSO of Ceres (USA), former Director of John
Innes Centre (UK)
Christiane NÜSSLEIN-VOLHARD, German Nobel Prize laureate
Peter GRUSS, President Max Planck Society, DE
Tim HUNT, UK Nobel Prize laureate
Julia GOODFELLOW, CEO BBSRC, UK
Marion GUILLOU, Director-General of INRA, FR
Peter FOLSTAR, Director of the Netherlands Genomics Initiative,
NL & Coordinator of ERA-NET Plant Genomics
3. MEMBERS OF THE DRAFTING GROUP OF THE VISION
Simon Barber (EuropaBio)
Indridi Benediktsson (European Commission)
Simon Bright (Syngenta, UK)
Michel Caboche (INRA, FR)
Bernard Convent (Bayer, BE)
Dick Flavell (Ceres, US)
Hans Kast (BASF, DE)
Beate Kettlitz (BEUC)
Waldemar Kütt (European Commission)
Markwart Kunz (Südzucker, DE)
Chris Lamb (JIC, UK)
Etienne Magnien (European Commission)
Karin Metzlaff (EPSO)
Jim Murray (BEUC)
Christian Patermann (European Commission)
Vincent Pétiard (Nestle, FR/CIAA)
Christophe Roturier (ARVALIS, FR)
Joachim Schiemann (Federal Biological Research Centre, DE)
Ralf-Michael Schmidt (BASF, DE)
Lothar Willmitzer (MPIMP, DE)
Frank Wolter (ESA, DE)
Marc Zabeau (VIB, BE)
4. RELEVANT WEBSITES
The
text of the vision paper will be available on the following
websites from 12pm 24th June on:
For
the biotechnology action plan and progress reports of the
European Commission please see:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/biotechnology and
press release (IP/04/531 of 23 April 2004).
For
the thematic priority on "food quality and safety" in the Sixth
Framework Programme (FP6) see also:
http://www.cordis.lu/food/home.html. For the
thematic priority on "life sciences, genomics and biotechnology
for health" in FP6 see also:
http://www.cordis.lu/lifescihealth/home.html.
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