By Peter McGill, Bloomberg via Checkbiotech.org

Michael Pragnell, chief executive of Syngenta AG, comments on the company's decision to end research on genetically modified crops in the U.K. and discusses the European Union's need for an independent regulator.

Pragnell spoke at a conference on consumers, farmers and food at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. Syngenta, based in Basel, Switzerland, is the world's biggest maker of crop chemicals.

On ending basic research on biotech crops in the U.K.:

"It was about the rationalization of our research activity around three major laboratories, two in Europe and one in North America. We had four, we wanted to reduce them to three, to get greater proximity of our scientists, to accelerate the rate of innovation.''

"What we are doing is investing some $40 million in new research facilities, and we had to decide where we did what.'' "This was not a political decision about saying `Goodbye Europe, there is no future for biotechnology-based crops here in Europe.' Not at all.''

On European consumers' concerns about gene-altered foods:

"What we saw happening in the late 1990s here in Europe was where a technology was launched on an unsuspecting consumer in the belief that the consumer wanted the product and would therefore buy the product.

"What became abundantly clear was that the European consumer was not prepared to be taken for granted. This was a consumerism point, not a regulatory point.''

On European Union regulation of biotech foods:

"Here in Europe, and this applies as much to the Commission as the independent sovereign states, we have a situation in which regulators can only advise the governments of the day, whereas in the U.S., the regulatory obligation discharged by the Environmental Protection Agency is enshrined in law, and the EPA is obliged to act independently in the best interests of the consumer.

"That is the fundamental challenge we have here in Europe, and it's not one that is going to be quickly faced. That really is the issue, that the regulation hasn't the power to act, the regulation can only advise the government of the day.

"Put that alongside the increasing power wielded by the consumer -- and governments, of course, are made up of elected politicians -- then elected politicians can be influenced by consumer opinion and attitude. What you don't see is their best interest being protected by an independent authority.

"That's really what underlay my point. Not a broad swipe at regulators. Far from it.''

On U.K. government policy toward genetically modified crops:

"I'm concerned that some of my competitors in the industry, who have been submitting products for approval, appear not to have enjoyed the wholehearted, enthusiastic support we had hoped for.''