AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT BIOTECHNOLOGY COMMISSION
TWENTY-THIRD COMMISSION MEETING
5 - 6 MAY 2004
ROYAL HORTICULTURAL HALLS & CONFERENCE CENTRE, GREYCOAT STREET, LONDON SW1P 2QD
Members
Julie Hill (Deputy Chair)
Helen Browning
Dr Dave Buckeridge
Dr Dave Carmichael
Professor Phil Dale
Dr Ed Dart
Dr Matthew Freeman
Professor Robin Grove-White
Dr Rosie Hails
Judith Hann
Dr Derek Langslow
Professor Keekok Lee
Professor Jeff Maxwell
Dr Sue Mayer
Secretariat
Dr Paul van Heyningen
Tonima Saha
Dr Patrick Erwin
Craig Johnson
Pat Wilson
Emma Knox
Introduction and Apologies
1. The Deputy Chair welcomed the Commission, officials and the public to the meeting.
2. Apologies were received from Anna Bradley, Judith Hann, John Gilliland, Malcolm Grant and Justine Thornton.
3. John Gilliland had taken an informal leave of absence while he stood as a candidate in the European elections. It was not necessary for him to formally resign from the Commission, however he would not play an active role in the Commission during the election campaign.
Matters of Report
4. Comments from Commission Members had been incorporated into the minutes of the last meeting.
5. The Deputy Chair thanked Members for their comments on the popular guide to the work of the AEBC, which had been incorporated. The secretariat was working on the design. The Deputy Chair asked Members to send the secretariat suggestions of who to send this to.
Action: Members
6. The Government’s statement on GM policy was made on 9 March. It was accompanied by a Government response to the 3 strands of the GM Dialogue. Subsequently, Bayer CropScience withdrew their Chardon LL forage maize claiming the constraints the Government placed on the approval of their maize made it “economically non-viable”.
7. On Coexistence and Liability, Defra committed in March to consulting stakeholders – particularly on the issue of thresholds of unavoidable GM content lower than 0.9% and compensation for economic loss to non-GM farmers. Margaret Beckett wrote to Malcolm Grant on 28 April, explaining how Defra would take forward the AEBC’s recommendations. Recommendations 1 to 5, concerning coexistence and compensation for economic loss, had been broadly accepted. Recommendations 6 to 8 on environmental liability were still being considered and would be responded to “in due course”. Recommendation 9 concerning the development of protocols for positive environmental management of both GM and non-GM crops would be considered in the work Defra was doing on the wider implications of the FSEs. The letter had been circulated to all Members and would be put on the website shortly.
8. The Commission would have an opportunity to discuss the Government statement and related issues in the second half of the meeting the next day.
9. The Environmental Audit Committee had published the Government response to their inquiry on GM Food – Evaluating the Farm Scales Trials, and their commentary on this, today. The secretariat would circulate this to all Members.
Action: secretariat
10. The Efra select committee was carrying out an inquiry, GM Planting Regime, which was focusing on coexistence and liability. The Chairman would be giving evidence to the Committee on 24 May on behalf of the AEBC.
11. New European Union (EU) regulations on the traceability and labelling of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) had come into force on 18 April. All food and ingredients produced from, containing or consisting of GMOs had to be labelled. For those GMOs that were currently approved in the EU, 'adventitious' levels of up to 0.9% would be permitted without the need for labelling; for GMOs that had not yet been fully approved in the EU but had received a favourable safety evaluation from a Community Scientific Committee, 'adventitious' levels of up to 0.5% would be permitted without the need for labelling. GMOs that had received neither EU approval nor a favourable risk evaluation would be forbidden.
12. EU farm Ministers were unable to decide whether to approve Syngenta’s Bt11 maize (for human consumption not cultivation) after a vote on 26 April. The European Commission would now decide whether to approve the maize.
13. The US had filed papers to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) demanding that the EU abandon its ban on the growing of genetically modified crops and pay at least £1bn in compensation for loss of exports over the past six years. In the papers the US accused the EU of imposing a moratorium on GM products in 1998 without any scientific evidence and in defiance of WTO free trade rules. The EU had until the end of May to reply before a WTO panel would meet in June to adjudicate.
14. The press cuttings the secretariat sent round were extremely valuable in keeping the Commission up to date on current issues.
15. The Deputy Chair invited Matthew Freeman to introduce the research agendas workstream.
Research Agendas Workstream
16. Matthew Freeman explained that the ‘core group’ leading on the workstream (Matthew Freeman, Sue Meyer and Phil Dale) had had one meeting and were keen to get the workstream under way.
17. Matthew emphasised that the core group were keen for other Members to get involved in the workstream and reminded the Commission that their involvement in the workstream would be welcome.
18. All the Commission had received the scoping document to comment on and members had endorsed the direction the workstream was moving in.
19. Matthew Freeman talked the
Commission through the scoping document, AEBC/04/05. He outlined the main
reasons for doing the workstream and stated the four key questions the
Commission were trying to answer:
·
What are the key drivers behind agricultural biotechnology research agendas?·
What mechanisms exist to ensure public attitudes, aspirations and policy priorities are taken into account when research agendas are set?·
How well do these mechanisms work?·
What have been the implications of the above for research and development?20. In this workstream the Commission would be looking for evidence to support or reject some of the perceptions and concerns around research agendas that had arisen through the Commission’s initial scoping.
21. Matthew emphasised that the Commission were not trying to promote the micro-management of science or make decisions about individual research projects. Nor were they looking to criticise private research agendas.
22. Matthew described the methodology and timescale the core group would be using. Desk research, case studies and a public engagement exercise would be carried out, and the group were aiming to publish reflections and overall recommendations next March.
23. The case studies would be trying to identify how high-level research drivers affected specific research areas to highlight any gaps or issues in the way agendas were set. The core group were hoping to get suggestions of what areas these case studies could concentrate on from both Members and guests during this session.
24. The aim was to base the public engagement exercise on the public reference group model the Commission had used for their work on animals and biotechnology. The Commission would address issues raised at the first meeting of the reference group.
25. In addition to the public reference group, the core group planned to have a second reference group made up of scientists. These would be junior scientists and the focus would be on what they would like to see happen in research agenda setting and how they believed things currently worked.
26. The core group wanted to ask the guests who had been invited to the meeting for their opinions on whether the Commission had got the scope for this workstream right.
27. Matthew handed back to the Deputy Chair so that she could introduce the guests.
28. The Deputy Chair asked the three guests who were already present to join the Commission at the table and welcomed them to the meeting. Colin Tudge would be joining them shortly.
29. The Deputy Chair asked the guests to provide the Commission with their “top-of-mind” reaction to the questions in the scoping document for up to five minutes. She explained that this would be followed by a ten minute session where the core group would ask the guests questions. This pattern would be followed for each guest in turn.
30. Below is a brief summary of the points covered by each guest. A more detailed summary of the guests’ views and the questions they were asked by the core group and other Commission Members is at Annex 1.
31. Howard Dalton, Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra, made the following points:
· The aim of Defra’s research was to support policy development.
· Defra’s Sustainable Farming and Food Research Priorities Group (RPG) was an important mechanism for engaging stakeholders in prioritising Defra’s sustainable agriculture research.
· The overall direction of research was set essentially by the Sustainable Farming and Food Strategy, and the RPG was working within this context.
· Other drivers were balanced by internal discussion and debate, to achieve a considered picture. The Defra Science Directorate acted as “translators” of high-level policy objectives.
· The role of public sector research was to tackle areas of market failure. If the private sector delivered the research to support Defra’s policy needs, then no public research was needed.
· Defra was doing more than ever before to consult people. Engaging the general public was more difficult than interested stakeholders, who were generally keen to give their views.
· Defra only pursued public-private partnerships through LINK (18% of its total spend on farming and food research). Each piece of LINK research was owned by the whole consortium, and the decision on whether to publish it was entirely for the consortium.
· Howard Dalton had doubts about whether the balance between fundamental and applied research in Defra was correct. More research was needed on the ethical issues in agriculture.
· The Treasury influenced research by controlling the purse strings. It had to be persuaded that bids to it for money for research stood up against other priorities. The Treasury clearly considered science and innovation very important.
· Defra was ‘taking stock’ internally on the GM dialogue and there was a joining up process taking place in Defra to connect agricultural, rural and environmental policy.
32. Ian Crute, Director Rothamsted Research, Chairman BBSRC Plant and Microbial Sciences Committee, and Member of the BBSRC Strategy Board, made the following points:
· Even using a wide definition of the term, less publicly-funded agricultural biotechnology research was carried out in the UK than was commonly thought.
· In the 1970s, research agendas were clearly targeted to providing underpinning support to ensure profitable and productive UK agriculture.. However, things became less simple in the 1980s and 90s with the concept of research as a component of a market for services with more diffuse aims such as contributing to “wealth creation” of “quality of life”. Agriculture research agendas were now becoming clearer again – the aim was to enable the development of soundly based policy options and new tools through which to achieve sustainable development.
· The direction of research was largely set by scientists pursuing things they believed were both important and interesting within the context of an overarching policy steer. Therefore, if scientists operated in an environment where the policy goals and sought-after targets were clear science would deliver options.
· The consequences of the transfer of public sector plant breeding to private ownership had been significant.
· Organisations like Rothamsted Research probably could do more to engage the public but making a link between public engagement and the setting of priorities for research was difficult.
· Knowledge transfer from scientists to end-users (eg the agricultural supply sector, consultants and farmers) was important but so was transfer of information and knowledge in the reverse direction.
33. Brian Johnson, Head of Agricultural Technologies Group at English Nature, and Senior Adviser on biotechnology to the British nature conservation agencies, made the following points:
· The Curry report, CAP reform and incidents such as foot and mouth disease had helped to define future agriculture policy in the UK. In the UK and Europe, unlike the rest of the world, drivers behind research were more complex than profit, and included rural issues and the public good.
· Consultation now went much wider than just the industry, resulting in an improvement in research agendas. However, we were at the bottom of a steep learning curve in terms of understanding how to get the best out of consultation and public engagement.
· Scientific curiosity was and should remain a driver for research. It was essential to maintain scientific excellence.
· More long-term data sets, and studies that lasted for whole rotations, were needed in agricultural research.
· The public did not mistrust science per se, but wanted more information about what the results of research mean for them.
34. Colin Tudge, science writer and visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy at the London School of Economics, made the following points:
· Agriculture had to be considered in the global context, bearing in mind the political and economic influences. Agriculture did not fit easily with the prevailing world economic models, and this was causing many of its problems.
· Agriculture was an important employer and a shift towards the low-labour, Western model in the developing world would affect the jobs of hundreds of millions worldwide.
· Science and industry were locked in a feedback loop where high-tech products were developed to make industry richer, thereby enabling industry to draw on more science and develop more products. This was why GM, which had potential for good, was used mainly to make products that benefited large corporations.
· There was a need to identify those scientists whose research was leading to more sustainable models for agriculture and to build on their research.
· Public engagement was a good thing, but often the most important points from it were ignored by scientists, as they were too difficult to address under current systems.
35. The Deputy Chair thanked all the guest speakers for their contributions and asked that they got in touch with any further comments and suggestions for case studies. The guest speakers then left and the Deputy Chair asked the core group for their reflections on the day.
36. Matthew Freeman began to summarise the discussion by saying that there seemed to be general agreement that public consultation was a good thing, should be carried out early in the research agenda development process, and was working well. The responses had been more optimistic than he had expected.
37. It had also been evident that research agendas filtered upwards from researchers themselves as well as being imposed from the top down. Research was often driven partly by scientists’ own interests and concerns.
38. The main message from Colin Tudge had been that it was important to identify those moving in the ‘right’ direction with their research and to build on that.
39. There was more work to be done a) on investigating by exactly what processes the high-level drivers filtered down to specific research funding decisions; and b) on whether and how research funding bodies had changed their ways since the House of Lords Science in Society report, that said in 2000 that all research funding bodies should have specific mechanisms for public engagement in place.
40. Phil Dale noted that consultation was a difficult process to get right and that there was a risk of it being just a cosmetic exercise.
41. Sue Mayer added that in today’s climate it was not surprising that people had been enthusiastic about consultation. However, they had not given any specific evidence of examples where consultations had worked well or where attempts had been made to reach a diverse range of people to consult.
42. It would be important to consider the importance of social and economic drivers and why they were considered to be separate from the other influences.
43. The Deputy Chair then invited all Commission members for their views on the day and the workstream more generally. In discussion the following points were raised:
44. It had been suggested in the project scope that that there was too much commercialisation of science and a decrease in soil science research. However, the guest speakers had generally felt that this was not the case.
45. Matthew Freeman responded that the scoping paper had intended to set out some of perceptions the Commission had picked up about research agendas and the work would not start with the assumption that these were true, but would look for evidence to support or refute these claims. The paper would be amended to clarify this.
46. Some members still felt that commercial interests were driving public sector research agendas and were sceptical about the speakers’ optimism on this. However, members welcomed the speakers’ honesty about the commercial influences on their research.
47. There was still a need to consider the decrease in public sector research funding and the shift of research from the public to the private sector in some areas.
48. Our concerns about the commercialisation of publicly funded research needed to be clarified. Was the issue about using public funds for commercial applications? If so, what about funding for organic farming research? Or were the concerns more specifically about large corporations having too much influence over public research priorities?
49. It would be important to look at how the private sector affected public sector research and it was agreed that this would be included in the scope of the workstream. It would be interesting to speak to companies about how research agendas were set, but would not be practical to question private companies on the specifics of the research they carried out.
50. Some interesting issues remained around research to support the needs of developing countries. It was noted that the Nuffield Council for Bioethics’ report on the use of GM in developing countries had suggested funding had decreased in this area over the years; and Ian Crute had suggested that in the past there had been a steer from Government to focus research on UK needs.
51. The Government’s new proposals for a 10 year investment framework in science and innovation included plans for university-business collaborations and it would be important to consider what this would mean for research agendas.
52. The speakers had not given a clear explanation of the process for balancing the various drivers when setting research agendas. The Commission needed to do more work to establish the mechanisms used, specifically focussing on how research that was actually conducted was linked to high level policy objectives and public aspirations.
53. It was felt that the Government had not done enough to learn the lessons from the GM dialogue and previous public engagement exercises.
54. It would be important to define what was meant by the ‘public’ when talking about public engagement. So called ‘public engagement’ exercises were usually actually ‘stakeholder engagement’ exercises.
55. Real engagement with the general public was difficult and people needed the knowledge and training on how to do this properly. For example, the discussions earlier had thrown up two different definitions of biodiversity – how could we get people to understand the complexities and sensibly weigh up the various factor in order to be contribute usefully to the debate?
56. It was agreed that the public engagement exercise proposed in this workstream, (i.e. the public and scientists’ reference groups) were a good idea but there were possibilities for development of this model. This method had been used before with the Commission’s Animals report, but had only been evaluated internally and not independently.
57. When considering soil science, the decrease in funding depended on what time period was being studied. However, what was fundamentally important was whether sufficient soil science was being done now to meet our needs. Matthew Freeman suggested that soil science might be used as a case study in this workstream.
58. The issues concerning the Devolved Administrations and their research agendas should not be forgotten. The SEERAD agricultural research budget was almost equivalent to BBSRC spend on crop research and SEERAD was therefore a significant player that should be considered within the scope of this workstream. It was suggested that the Commission’s forthcoming meeting in Aberdeen to could be used to consider this issue.
59. When considering Question 1 of this project (“What are the key drivers behind agricultural biotechnology research agendas and how are they balanced?”) some judgement on what the drivers should be would come out of this. It would be important to consider what was reasonable/realistic, as well as what the aspirations might be.
60. When considering Question 2 (“What mechanisms exist to ensure public attitudes aspirations and policy priorities are taking into account when research agendas are set?”) it would be useful to include a recognition of societal aspirations for the future as well as current public attitudes.
61. Matthew Freeman thanked Members for their comments and asked anyone that was interested in working with the core group to let him or the Secretariat know. The scoping note would be changed to reflect the comments and work on the ‘reference groups’ would start as soon as possible.
The meeting closed at 5.30pm.
62. The meeting resumed at 9am on Thursday 6 May.
63. The Chair apologised for his absence the previous day and thanked the Deputy Chair for chairing.
64. The Chair noted that the Commission had met Elliot Morley, Minister for Environment and Agri-Environment, the previous evening for an interesting and productive discussion.
65. The Chair invited David Buckeridge to describe to the Commission the progress of the non-food agriculture workstream.
Non-Food Agriculture Workstream
66. David Buckeridge reported back to the Commission on progress on the Non Food Agriculture Workstream. In a presentation outlining the project he made the following points:
67. The following were major drivers in the non-food agriculture agenda:
· Expectations that EU/UK/Regional government policies will drive increased diversification of agriculture, and inevitably wider adoption of non-food farming
· Likely regulatory gaps and redundancies
· Fundamental societal needs creating clear trade-off decisions in the agri-environment
· Potential of biotech to accelerate and/or widen opportunities and to accentuate trade-off
68. The non-food agriculture agenda was of significant relevance to AEBC for the following reasons:
· The clear need for public engagement in the project – and the option for a more inventive communications plan
· The wide ‘landscape’ to study, needing crystallization for public engagement
· The work would take the Commission beyond the obsession with GM
· The clear regulatory dimension
69. The core-group had concluded that there was real merit in trying out innovative styles of reporting, including:
· Broad communication to lay out the drivers and the landscape (e.g. a wall chart showing the wide applications of non-food agriculture)
· Regular, less orthodox feedback mechanisms
· In-depth work via case studies, documented brochures/papers
70. Strong contenders for case studies were:
· Biofuels focusing on bioethanol
· Packaging/plastics focusing on polylactic acid
· Bio-pharmaceuticals focusing perhaps on vaccines
71. The core group wanted a detailed public engagement exercise based on case studies to be an important part of the workstream. This would encompass the use of a broad TV/Interactive/Web based media approach to set the scene and engage the public (including a face-to-face or web-based follow-up public research exercise. If this were a TV program the commission would have to pitch it to a TV company, and the pitch might look like:
Programme Pitch:
|
Scene Setting · Population growth, food, resources, inequalities. Programme structure: · Start back at the effect of the industrial revolution
on agriculture? The past with diversified agriculture and lots of sepia
tones Introduce questions: · Will we see the side effects this time around? Comments/interviews in evocative locations · Experts: what are the problems we face? Conclusion: · A re-diversification of farming? Interact! …Has agriculture come full circle? *Press the red button on your remote now* |
72. In a discussion following David’s presentation the following points were made:
73. It was important that the scope of the project was not limited to transgenics, and the choice of case studies also needed to reflect the broad focus on biotechnology and be able to highlight the common principles.
74. Given the previous day’s presentation from Colin Tudge, it was suggested that trees should be one of the case studies. This would give a wide focus on biotechnology as well as a set of wider environmental issues including land use, sustainable provision of building materials and fuels as well as riparian management (e.g. the implications of the water framework directive).
75. The Commission needed to continue to be very clear with its language e.g. genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to the general public now equated to transgenic organisms, whereas it was clearly possible to modify the genome of an organism without introducing the genes of another species (i.e. transgenes).
76. The public engagement aspects of the programme needed to be thought through carefully. If the public opinion work was exclusively limited to a TV programme the quality of the results was almost certainly going to compromised.
77. The first part of the study looking at the regulatory framework needed to be conducted in the wider context of the policy framework, including the assumptions behind the policies e.g. environmental pressures such as climate change and the new pressures on planning controls.
78. As a primary aim, the Commission should be influencing (Government) thinking on agriculture, land-use and the wider environment.
79. Concern was expressed that the project was set up in a way that was not designed to answer a specific question. It was noted that the AEBC’s primary role was to advise government – what would come from this study? Conversely, merit was seen in an investigative/explorative approach, highlighting issues identified from regulatory analysis and the public opinion work, and not being limited to answering a set of focused questions.
80. On the possibility of a TV programme the following points were raised:
81. The commission needed to be clear what the purpose of the programme was: to entertain or elicit views?
82. The Chair asked Judith Hann for her input on this issue; Judith made the following points:
· It would be easy to interest programme makers in this broad idea.
· Once programme-makers have taken interest, they would expect to be allowed to get on with the programme and take the Commission’s ideas in the direction they saw fit. In other works the Commission should not expect to exercise any control over the final programme. If the Commission wanted control of outputs, it should be exercised elsewhere e.g. in reports.
· The normal approach would be to go to the editor of a programme like Horizon or an independent production company, who would then sell the idea in the BBC/to a TV company.
· A programme would probably only look at one or two aspects of the project’s scope, the Commission should not expect the programme to fully expose all the issues.
· The lead-in time would be significant, at least nine to twelve months.
83. Following Judith’s contribution the following points were raised:
84. Other options were discussed and it was agreed that it would be worthwhile looking into the possibility of a consensus conference and some kind of interactive event with a science centre.
85. The benefits of working with a commercial TV company were discussed, the end product would clearly be a better product than if the Commission decided to try make its own programme. But there was the risk that the end product may be sensationalist.
86. The Commission could investigate the possibility of joining up with an educational filmmaker, e.g. the Open University. This could link with various curricula in schools and colleges.
87. The feedback from the interactive section of a TV programme would be at best crude; it would have to be complimented by a robust public opinion exercise for results to prove meaningful.
88. Malcolm asked David Buckeridge to draw together the strands of the discussion and suggest how to take this forward; David made the following points:
· The Commission had agreed that it wanted to explore the idea of a TV programme despite the inevitable long run-in time. While working up the pitch for the TV programme the core group would get started with the policy background work, selecting case studies and the regulatory analysis. The public engagement part of the work programme could then be phased to work with the TV programme, which in turn would form part of a broader communications strategy, targeting the widest possible audience.
· In the first instance the core group would pitch a popular programme (c.f. educational) to various programme makers, starting with the BBC and Channel 4. On balance the Commission wanted to aim for the widest audience.
· In answer to the points others had made about the importance of the wider policy framework the project could start by mapping out the policy context underling the non-food crops agenda including the underling assumptions and pressures (environmental, social and economic) driving policy.
· The core group would try and balance being clear about the aims of the project against the risk of losing the exploratory element by keeping the initial focus of the project narrow and then using the data produced to expose general implications.
· The interest in trees would be taken into account in case study selection.
89. Summing up, Malcolm concluded that the Commission was excited about this project and that they liked the concept of phasing the stages of it. Personally he was aware that the Commission had been driven by outputs in the past and liked the open-endedness of the project. He noted that the following actions had been agreed:
Actions:
· David Buckeridge and Judith Hann to lead with help from the core group and the secretariat in pulling together a programme pitch.
· Secretariat to work with core group in finalising scoping document.
· Core group to agree case studies.
Global Influences
90. The Chair invited the secretariat to say a few words on paper AEBC/04/07 on global influences.
91. The secretary explained that the paper suggested that the Commission put this workstream “on the back-burner” due to limited resources both in terms of Commission Members’ and secretariat time and financial constraints. He suggested that the Commission should focus its energies on the research agendas and non-food agriculture workstreams.
92. Defra had recently published a consultation on the new EU traceability and labelling regulations, which included research looking at some of the areas the Commission wanted to cover in this workstream, in particular a case study of sourcing non-GM soya from Brazil.
93. The main areas within this topic that remained were a case study on sourcing of non-GM seeds and a public engagement exercise looking at the public’s reaction to the difficulties in sourcing non-GM products.
94. The secretariat recommended “option c” in the paper: that the Commission would bring these issues to the attention of Government and recommend that further work be carried out in these areas; the Commission did not have the resources to do this themselves at this time.
95. Some Commission Members expressed concern that Defra’s study did not explore all of the issues around sourcing non-GM soya in the way the Commission would have.
96. It was also noted that these issues were very important for consumer choice and trade issues and several Commission Members felt that to put it on the “back-burner” for too long would be unfortunate.
97. It was suggested that the Commission could write a brief on these issues and then employ a consultant to produce an advisory paper from which the Commission could produce something for Government. The Secretary explained that writing a brief for this would use Commission and secretariat resources and that the consultancy had not been budgeted for and would have a knock on effect on the other workstreams.
98. The Commission decided that “option c” above would be pursued but that further investigation should be carried out on what the Commission could achieve at moderate cost and use of secretariat and Commission time.
Action: secretariat and Members with an interest in the issues
AEBC Response to the Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs) and the GM Policy statement
99. The Chair invited the Deputy Chair to introduce paper AEBC/04/08.
100. The Deputy Chair explained that there were six issues that the Commission had identified as issues to draw to the attention of Government.
·
The wider implications of the FSEs·
Embedding the lessons learned for GM Nation?·
Pursuing research needs identified by the GM Science Review·
The impact on policy of the GM dialogue as a whole·
Unresolved issues on Coexistence and Liability·
Work on the effect of global influences on GM foods/seeds in the UK (as discussed earlier)101. The Commission also needed to present its new workplan to Government in the near future.
102. The Deputy Chair reminded the Commission that they would not be discussing the draft text on the wider implications of the FSEs in detail today. This had been circulated to Members and they should send written comments to the secretariat.
103. The paper AEBC/04/08 detailed three options for presenting these issues to Government.
·
Publish all of the issues together in one document·
Publish the FSE response separately and combine the other issues with the AEBC workplan: two documents·
Publish the FSE response, the other issues and the new workplan all separately: three documents104. The secretariat recommended that the Commission published two documents, the FSEs response separately and the other issues combined with the AEBC workplan.
105. Support was expressed for publishing three separate documents because each issue warranted a different type of document. The FSE response would be a technical document. The other issues document should emphasise the lessons to be learnt from the GM dialogue and argue that as the Government had spent a lot of money on this they should not abandon the important and wide-ranging lose ends. The AEBC workplan needed to be a short, clear and focused document.
106. Members were generally positive about the draft response to the FSEs. But some commented that the focus and purpose of the draft response was unclear. It was suggested that the response should be more focused on what the lessons to be learnt from the FSEs were and that this should also be reflected in the tone of the document. It was also proposed that other reflections on the implications of the FSEs could be added, such as the social ones.
107. It was suggested that the Chair should write a letter to Ministers to bring the other issues identified to their attention. This should highlight the lessons that needed to be learnt from the whole process that had informed Government policy on GM. This letter could be framed within the context of the Government’s ten-year Investment Framework in Science and Innovation.
108. There was some discussion as to the degree in which Government was listening to the public and stakeholders. Some Members felt that Government was working in a way that engendered public mistrust. A greater degree of trust could be achieved if the public felt that decision-making processes were more open and transparent. Government needed to learn from previous exchanges to tackle this and it was unclear to what extent they were doing so. The Commission had a role in raising these issues with Government and highlighting the benefits of such an approach.
109. Some Members asked for a more detailed evaluation to be carried out on what the Government thought of the GM debate and how it was used to inform policy. It was suggested that the Office of Science and Technology’s Science and Society Directorate might be in a position to explore these issues.
110. Judith Han mentioned that she had written an article in the Telegraph on public mistrust of science. The secretariat would circulate this.
Action: secretariat
111. Following up the Commission’s report on Animals and Biotechnology was raised and it was proposed to add this to the list of issues to be raised with Government. The Commission were keen to be updated on where FAWC were with their work on this.
Action: secretariat
112. The Chair summed up by saying that the Commission would produce three separate papers.
113. The Chair would work with Robin Grove-White on how best to communicate to the Government that more consideration was needed of the lessons to be learnt from the processes that helped inform their GM policy.
Action: Malcolm Grant and Robin Grove-White
AEBC input to the AEBC Review
114. The Chair commented that Judy Britton, Joint Director of Science in Government Directorate, had written to all members updating them on the review.
115. The Chair, Deputy Chair and secretariat had met the reviewer, Neil Williams.
116. Neil Williams was framing his own approach to the review. He would not necessarily be interviewing all Members but would welcome contributions from everybody. If Members did want a face-to-face meeting with him they would of course be given the opportunity.
117. The Chair invited the Deputy Chair to introduce her paper AEBC/04/09.
118. The Deputy Chair explained that the real experience of being in the Commission, with its unique dynamics, was known only to the Commission Members themselves. This could not be elucidated from outside the Commission, therefore the Commission needed to make its own formal input to the review.
119. Some Members commented that this would be a difficult document to produce and that it was important to represent the full range of perspectives held by Commission Members. It was asked whether the effort it would take to achieve consensus would be worth the output. However, several Members commented that it would be appear odd for the Commission not to submit its own input to the review and were of the opinion that it would not be too difficult to produce.
120. It was commented that the submission should cover how the Commission believes it is viewed by its stakeholders.
121. The document needed to address the future of the AEBC in some way. Some Members felt that it was important not to assume in the submission that the AEBC should continue to exist. The submission needed to address whether the AEBC was still needed and whether the need had changed. It would be important to articulate the Commission’s strengths and weaknesses and leave to the Reviewer’s judgement whether the AEBC might cease to exist or work to an amended terms of reference.
122. The Chair invited the Deputy Chair to take forward the drafting of the submission. The Deputy Chair advised that she would be circulating a draft of this during June. Jeff Maxwell offered to help if needed.
Action: Julie Hill
123. As the Commission had no other business, the Chair thanked everybody for coming and ended the meeting.
The meeting closed at 11.30am.
AEBC secretariat
May 2004
Detailed note of Discussion with guests of Research Agendas Workstream, 5 May 2004
1. Professor Howard Dalton gave a short introduction to his views on the issues and made the following main points:
2. He felt that the key questions proposed for the AEBC’s workstream were helpful as a foundation for the discussion
3. The main role of Defra was not as a funder of research per se, although the Department spent approximately £30m per annum on agricultural research to increase the environmental performance of farming.
4. The issues around climate change, the Water Framework directive, non food-crops, the Curry report etc were important drivers for policy and research, along with European policies (such as CAP reform) and WTO factors.
5. Defra research was aimed to support policy development. Defra policies were set through a democratic process of consultation and discussions with industry bodies, other government departments and lobby groups etc. The research could have a number of different aims and functions: it could be responsive to policy needs, aimed at influencing and shaping policy development and delivery, or intended to be ‘ahead of the game’ in terms of providing evidence for future policy requirements.
6. He felt that there was a need to ensure that there was an effective balance between fundamental and applied research.
7. The new Defra Research Priorities Group (RPG) was an important mechanism for accessing views from a range of sources. Their first meeting had been held on Friday 30th April in Birmingham on the “Impact of global and technological drivers on farming and food.” This had been an interactive computer-based event and had been attended by around 70 people.
8. He agreed that there seemed to be (understandable) reluctance from industry not to get involved in public good research if there were no monetary gains to be achieved.
9. Matthew Freeman, Sue Mayer and Phil Dale – the core group from the AEBC working on this topic - then asked Howard Dalton a series of questions. The main questions posed are noted in italics with Professor Dalton’s response following below:
How are the different research drivers balanced? And what are the key ways in which this is done?
10. The system for advising on priorities and balance was essentially the RPG - it was advising on the shape of the sustainable agriculture research agenda and would report back to Defra in 12months. The group is independent of Defra.
11. The aim was to balance all the drivers as best as possible. These were inputted into the ‘system’ and were sifted and debated within the Department to provide a considered output.
12. The direction was essentially set by the Sustainable Food and Farming Strategy. The RPG would be holding discussions with its focus groups within this context.
13. They would be undertaking much consultation with stakeholders (including farmers, researchers, the general public and industry), and trying to reach a wide a base as possible.
14. He agreed that, compared to some other European Countries, the UK could probably do more to consider the ethical issues.
How do you decide what research should be conducted in the public arena and what should be privately funded?
15. There was not necessarily a distinction between the two. If research needed to be done to support the sustainable agriculture agenda, then it could be funded publicly or privately. They were not concerned about the perception of research being ‘tarnished’ by collaboration with industry association.
16. Donal Murphy-Bokern (Defra Farming and Food Science Division) added that the role of the public sector was to tackle market failure and if the private sector delivered what society needed in the way it was required, then government would not intervene.
Could you expand on your views on the balance between fundamental and applied research?
He was open-minded as to whether the balance was exactly right at present. Defra spent about £30m per year on crop science, whereas the BBSRC spend was approximately £60m. The environmental and economic performance of UK farming was important, being a necessary part of sustainable agriculture, and research needed to applied to this goal. However other environmental protection issues was also obviously important, and CAP and EU drivers would help achieve the balance required.
What have been the difficulties in attempting to engage with stakeholders?
17. It was easy to access large numbers of interested groups, but getting to the general public was more difficult and took a significant amount of time. The level of response from the latter was generally lower than they would hope for, although a lot of correspondence was received and a great deal of effort went into replying to it. It was also difficult to engage stakeholders at the research level and they were not really doing so at present.
18. The Deputy Chair then introduced Professor Ian Crute, - Director Rothamsted Research, Chairman BBSRC Plant and Microbial Sciences Committee, and Member of the BBSRC Strategy Board. Professor Crute explained that he was representing his own opinions and not those of BBSRC or Rothamsted Research and gave a short introduction in which he raised the points:
Background
19. Rothamsted was where scientific method had been first applied to agriculture. The institute consisted of 350 scientists, approximately 100 PhD students and visiting scientists.
20. Their research had always included a significant interest in developing countries and the Rothamsted International Fellowship Scheme enabled visiting scientists from developing countries to carry out research in the institute.
21. Rothamsted Research had an income of approximately £25m and was sponsored by the BBSRC (who provided a core grant of approximately £9m.) He estimated about 22% of UK public sector agricultural research was conducted by Rothamsted Research.
22. The BBSRC strategy board was where the various committees within the research council came together. The Plant and Microbial Sciences Committee was primarily concerned with research at the whole organism level. Its budget was approximately £4m per year.
4 primary points
23. There was a perception that more agricultural biotechnological research was being done in the UK public sector than was actually the case.
· It was estimated that Rothamsted Research conducted approximately £5m per annum of research on ‘biotechnology’ if a wide definition of the term was adopted – with a narrower definition (for example, the use of transgenics for crop genetic improvement), the spend would be much less.
· A greater proportion of Rothamsted Researches research income was spent on such areas as soil science, plant disease management, pesticide resistance, population dynamics, environmental science, etc.
· He therefore queried the tone of some of the questions laid out in the AEBC scoping paper.
24. The aims of public research had changed over the decades.
· In the 1970s the aim was to provide underpinning support to ensure profitable and productive UK agriculture by tackling the problems faced by growers.
· The focus shifted through the 1980s and 90s with research aimed at addressing UK “wealth creation” and “quality of life” issues. Science was seen essentially as part of the UK service sector with one aim being to capture a share of global intellectual property.
· Now there seemed to be a clearer shared agenda: research was to provide evidence-based options for future policy making and tools to enable progress towards sustainable development. The aims were to a) to ensure long-term predictable outputs from managed land with minimal input of non-renewable resources, b) to meet the global production requirements of biomass, and c) to achieve this with a recognition that there will be less land available for agricultural production (due to increased use of land for leisure/recreation, increased urbanisation etc).
25. Scientific research was about developing new understanding of the natural world and was therefore not synonymous with technology. This meant that the ‘quality’ of science was primarily judged by impact on other scientists. Increased scientific knowledge can result in new practices or the development of new products. GM provides an example of science applied to produce new products that in turn generate new practices.
26. There were 8 drivers for the sustainable development of agricultural land, and biotechnology had a potential role in all of these:
· Effective nutrient cycling
· Minimising diffuse pollution
· Defining ‘soil quality’ and conserving it
· Durable pest, weed and disease control less reliant on chemical synthesis
· Characterisation, conservation and exploitation of functional biodiversity
· Reducing reliance on fossil carbon inputs
· Crop genetic improvement for resource use efficiency
· Crops as ‘factories’ and fossil carbon substitutes
27. Matthew Freeman, Sue Mayer and Phil Dale from the AEBC then asked Ian Crute a series of questions. The main questions posed are noted in italics with Professor Crute’s response following below:
What were the drivers that led to the emergence of a clear “sustainability” agenda in the late 1990s?
28. This was due to a combination of political drivers, the influence of the globalisation process, the problems around a growing population and contracting resource base, and increased awareness of agricultural practices.
29. During the 1960’s and 70’s the driver behind agricultural science was to ‘feed the world’ and this inspired young people to enter research in support of agriculture as a career. During the 1980’s there was a reduced emphasis on “public-good” and a greater commercially-driven emphasis to the science. Agricultural science became a less attractive career option. There is now some evidence of an increased interest in the contribution that agricultural science will have on meeting the challenges of sustainable development internationally.
30. The formation of the BBSRC from the Agricultural and Food Research Council was something of a political statement. At the time, BBSRC shifted their focus away from agriculture, whereas now ‘Sustainable Agriculture’ was one of its four key strands.
How do institutes like Rothamsted decide what areas they should focus on to inform future policy?
31. It was rarely a consciously analytical process. Scientists conducted research in areas that they thought were important and interesting within an overarching policy framework (for example, sustainability). Therefore, if they were placed in an environment where strategic and political drivers were clearly annuncia, they would investigate appropriately relevant questions.
Does Rothamsted involve the public in its research enough and is this worthwhile?
32. It probably could do more, although there was already much interaction with the public. They had much interest and support from the public and held approximately 3-4 open meetings a year, but had no specific public engagement mechanisms to involve the public in determination of research priorities for example.
33. Professor Crute had been through a process with the Environment Council where they had considered how they might design a process to involve stakeholders, including the public in setting priorities. They found that the different components involved (the ‘hard science’ vs. public engagement strands) did not work well together. This was a difficult barrier to overcome and made genuinely constructive public engagement challenging
Have the drivers behind research become more commercial?
34. In the UK during the 1960’s public sector plant breeding programmes were essentially competing with the private sector, and were doing so very profitably. As a result, during the 1980’s, public sector plant breeding was transferred largely to the private sector.
35. The impact of this was enormous. However, the negative impact had now been recognised and efforts were being made to coordinate and integrate dispersed scientific expertise with the objective of addressing traits in crops of importance for sustainability.
36. The Deputy Chair then introduced Dr Brian Johnson, Head of Agricultural Technologies Group at English Nature, and Senior Adviser on biotechnology to the British nature conservations agencies. Dr Johnson then gave a short introduction to his views on the issues and made the following main points:
37. Globally, agricultural biotechnology research drivers were largely commercially driven and focussed towards profitability for the farmer.
38. In the UK and Europe the drivers were more complex. For example, considered patterns of agricultural and rural land use and ‘public good’ were now emerging as drivers. As a result, consultation on the agricultural agenda now went much wider than just the farming industry, and research agendas were improving.
39. Scientific curiosity was a driver for research and should remain so. Maintaining research excellence and maintaining contact with excellent research groups world wide was important. If this was lost, R &D would simply be conducted elsewhere and would not necessarily produce the results that were needed.
40. In predicting future policy (and therefore research needs), the Foresight process had not been particularly helpful to date. The Curry report, CAP reform and incidents such as the foot and mouth disease outbreak had clarified the future direction of agricultural policy (not just in terms of food production).
41. Dr Johnson suggested that the desire for sustainable agriculture should not drive the agenda as ‘sustainability’ was difficult to define. Instead, when trying to identify research priorities, it would be helpful to start by defining ‘unsustainable agriculture’.
42. The following characteristics of unsustainable agriculture were defined:
· Heavy reliance on finite resources, including fossil fuels, water and soil (which is suffering serious degradation worldwide)
· Low biodiversity in farmed landscapes
· Low crop diversity
· High water pollution (especially diffuse pollution)
· Significant impacts of pesticides etc on water and other resources (The UK had the highest rate of inputs in agriculture in the world)
· Over reliance on irrigation in agricultural production
43. Novel products and techniques should not drive changes in agriculture. The research community should be told what was needed and asked to carry out the necessary work to deliver it, not the other way around.
44. Risk assessment work on biotechnology issues was of little use in terms of sustainable development. UK studies on the impact of novel crops on ecosystems were useful, but a whole-rotation systems analysis approach would be helpful. The FSEs were a good example of how to set protocols for different crop management options, but we did not have the basic information we needed to conduct a full analysis. More research was needed in this area.
45. Matthew Freeman, Sue Mayer and Phil Dale from the AEBC then asked Brian Johnson a series of questions. The main questions posed are noted in italics with Dr Johnson’s response following below:
What has changed to bring about the improvements mentioned over the past few years? Are public consultations a good thing? What do you think of public mistrust of science?
46. Dr Johnson did not believe there was public mistrust of science per se, but that people just wanted to know ‘what science was all about’ and wanted more information.
47. The improvement in R&D agendas was partly due to wider consultation. The community for consultation was now wider than the original focus on food production.
Are the results of consultation exercises incorporated into research agendas?
48. Yes they were as they often highlighted issues not thought up by the research groups themselves. However there was still a lot to learn in terms of how to get the best out of such exercises – we were at the bottom of a very steep learning curve.
How does English Nature decide on its priorities?
49. Their research budget was approximately £3m, however they also had a role to play in influencing how others spent their research funds. Their priorities were centred around understanding impacts on biodiversity and the environment and how to address them.
How can we address ‘short-termism’ in research agendas?
50. In environmental research it was necessary to develop long-term data sets, which were extremely valuable. It was important to decide at the start what purpose these data sets would serve and what would be done with them.
Drawing on your experience of CGIAR, how well do you think the agricultural agenda takes sustainability in the broader context?
51. Elsewhere in the world, sustainable agriculture was lower down the agenda than in the UK or Europe. This was primarily because issues of food supply were more important in the developing world.
52. Agricultural production could never be totally sustainable but we should strive to find ways of doing things better to reduce the impact on the planet, particularly in terms of soil and water conservation. There might be a role for biotechnology in dealing with these problems.
53. The Deputy Chair then introduced Colin Tudge, science writer and visiting Research Fellow of the Centre for Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Colin Tudge then gave a short introduction to his views on the issues and made the following main points:
54. The problems didn’t begin with the UK and needed to be considered in the global context. Agriculture did not fit into the existing economic and political model and this lack of fit could lead to problems such as famine.
55. Agriculture needed to be considered by starting at first principles – what was agriculture for? If one accepted that the aim was food production and this was approached as a solely biological problem, then it would be possible to feed all of the world’s population.
56. At the same time it was important that agricultural practices had a role to play in environmental protection. Agriculture should also adopt practices that were humane to animals.
57. Agriculture should be considered as an important form of employment. To be able to feed all of the world’s population, the approach currently being taken was to industrialise agriculture through replacing labour with technology. 60% of the population in the developing world worked on the land and if practices were changed radically they would be put out of work..
58. Science was locked in a feedback loop whereby it was used by large companies to develop high technology products which made the industry richer, enabling them to draw on new science again for more commercial ventures. Originally, the ideas behind the science may have been driven by the public good, but they were not currently used in this way. For example, GM technology could produce saline resistant crops for use in the developing world, but was instead used to make more profitable maize for US farmers. However, there were some examples of ‘good’ uses of GM technology, e.g. to make GM papaya in Brazil that was resistant to local pests.
59. Science in the last 30 years had contributed to the transfer of power to large companies. Colin Tudge stated that he was not anti-capitalist but felt that the current model where so much power rested with large corporations was wrong.
60. A ‘revolution’ would not work, nor would ‘reform’ therefore a process of evolution was the only way forward: identifying the people that were working towards sustainability goals and building on their work.
61. Matthew Freeman, Sue Mayer and Phil Dale from the AEBC then asked Colin Tudge a series of questions. The main questions posed are noted in italics with Colin Tudge’s response following below:
Given the reality of the situation we are faced with now, what can we do now to research agendas to bring about change?
62. It was first necessary to identify the things in agriculture that were worthwhile and then seek the necessary research to support it. It would also be sensible to identify what was a sensible proportion of people to be employed on the land. For example, if it was then decided that agriculture in developing countries should be based around small family farms and mixed cropping etc, then the appropriate research could be done to support this.
63. Public engagement was sensible and could be used to demonstrate some of the ways in which GM could be useful. Consultations were useful organisations like Defra/BBSRC did listen to the public. However scientists often only addressed the points they could answer easily form consultation and ignored the wider, more difficult messages.
You suggested revolution is impractical, but changing employment and economic structures would be a form of revolution? What is your vision for the role of industry? Doesn’t industry provide some form of public good?
64. This was a big question to address – how could corporations be made to work for the public good? Supermarkets were a good test case as they had significant effects on the agriculture industry. They could be considered to be contributing to the ‘public good’ in the sense that they were big employers, however at the same time they were also paying a low prices to the farmers for their goods.
65. Supermarkets did sometimes sell local produce but this was essentially ‘tokenism’. In selling such produce, they were not acting as a commercial player in the market – to do this they would have to buy the cheapest products and use their own packaging etc. It would be useful for a group like the AEBC to look into how to influence the supermarkets.
Can you identify some instances in agriculture where research was working towards the right goals?
66. Organic agriculture was not necessarily the answer to all problems, but public sector research should be targeted towards the sorts of principles organic farming was working towards. The potential of agroforestry was also worth looking into.
67. The Deputy Chair then invited the other Commission members to join the discussion and pose their questions to the guest speakers. The main questions posed are noted in italics with the responses below, attributed to each of the speakers.
What do you mean by ‘functional biodiversity’?
68. Ian Crute – Functional biodiversity referred to the components of ecosystems that were absolutely key to its continued health and functionality. Preserving emblematic or rare species was of course important from an aesthetic perspective but it was the biological components of ecosystems that ensured stability and continued function, that were critical.
69. Brian Johnson - English Nature had a statutory duty to look after our wildlife and this included farmland biodiversity. Some species had adapted to live alongside agricultural landscapes and this was now their ‘natural habitat’. Farmland was therefore necessary for preserving the full range of biodiversity. Biodiversity also served a useful function in controlling pests and diseases.
70. Colin Tudge – There was a need to reconcile wildlife protection with food production. The two functions could be carried out separately, but it was also necessary to consider how they work together, for example in livestock farming in meadows.
71. Howard Dalton – There was a government target to reverse the decline in farmland birds, but this was difficult given farming practices such as monoculture, silage based systems and winter-sown crops. Other processes could be adopted to address the decline but they would have knock-on economic effects. This was therefore a multifactoral problem that required complex solutions.
72. Brian Johnson – Moving to spring-sown crops and hay/straw instead of silage could help improve biodiversity, but this did not mean that we should revert back to the old mechanisms for doing this and new approaches were needed.
How will we know when we have achieved satisfactory biodiversity?
73. Brian Johnson - The aim was to achieve viable populations that were not genetically impoverished and could survive environmental shocks such as a severe winter. The agricultural landscape, including its wildlife, was important to many, not just farmers. The foot and mouth outbreak showed this, with respect to tourism in particular. Therefore the ‘value’ of biodiversity was not simply biological.
Given that 22% of public research in this area was done at Rothamsted and the priorities were left to emerge from the scientists themselves, was research in line with public and end-users needs?
74. Ian Crute – A significant proportion of the 22% mentioned was specified by customers such as Defra. However, scientists still had some leeway to do what they felt was important and would contribute to the public good. It was important for researchers to come up options for land-use solutions were practical. Knowledge transfer from scientists to end-users (for example, the agricultural supply sector, consultants and farmers) was important but so was transfer of information and knowledge in the reverse direction.
What are the overall analytical processes that are underway in Defra on the implications of the GM dialogue for research?
75. Howard Dalton - There were discussions internally, but time was needed to take stock and it was too early to announce any decisions now. Defra’s role on GM issues was essentially that of a regulatory agency, as policies were decided at the EU level.
76. While the debate was running there had been no Defra funding for fundamental GM-based research. There would be an active process to consider the specific research needs identified by the GM science review, but this would be dependent on the spending review process that was underway at the moment.
To what extend does the Treasury have an influence on research agendas?
77. Howard Dalton – Defra needs to make a good case for their bid to the Treasury, and research would be a relatively small part of this. It would also be important to bear in mind Government had other high-level priorities, although science and research would be high up on the agenda, as recent announcements about a ten-year framework had demonstrated.
At what stage is it best to develop a public consultation?
78. Howard Dalton – Defra was now doing more consultation than ever before, with a wide spectrum of people, not just experts. It was best to start thinking about it as early as possible to help others to understand your thinking so that you could work through the development process.
79. Ian Crute – Agreed that it was best to start consultation as early as possible. It was important to get a wide range of people to sign up to your high-level objectives, focusing on what you wanted to achieve, rather than the details of the technologies used to reach those aims.
80. Colin Tudge – Agreed and added that there was a low level of general knowledge in the public about GM and farming more generally. He asked whether commercial interests inhibited public engagement?
81. Ian Crute – Disagreed with the “feedback loop” between industry and science that Colin Tudge had proposed. Although there might have been a grain of truth in this during the early development of biotechnology, it was certainly not the case now in the UK. There was a valuable sharing of information in both directions to and from industry.
82. Howard Dalton – Defra was responsive to its policy needs and if the research that was required to meet these needs involved industry, then Defra would support it.
In public-private partnerships, there was often pressure not to disseminate information as widely as possible, or to stop following a certain research path even if there were potential societal benefits. Given that public money is put into these partnerships, how can we influence this?
83. Howard Dalton – Defra only pursued these partnerships through the LINK schemes, and it was estimated that approximately 18% of Defra farming and food research budget went into such schemes. The research was then owned by the LINK consortia and decisions on what to publish etc were up to them in fulfilling a publication and dissemination obligation. However, the remaining 82% of Defra’s research was solely public research and was fully published.
84. Ian Crute – Over the last few decades there has been a general decline in the volume of the agricultural research base but in Rothamsted Research the decrease in soil science had been no more than in any other area. Approximately £2m of the £9m of core grant was used for soil science, plus additional money from Defra, the EU etc.
85. There had probably been a move from process-driven soil science to more landscape based research, e.g. with respect to nitrate leaching.
86. The IGER and Rothamsted had recently agreed with BBSRC the establishment of a cross-institute programme on sustainable soil function.
87. Howard Dalton – Agriculture research generally had decreased with the increasing focus on research into environmental issues. Defra also funded Cranfield and Rothamsted institutes, and agri-environment schemes also contributed to this agenda.
Was enough being done to do address the issues facing developing countries?
88. Ian Crute – Rothamsted was interested in doing more work in this area and before the 1980s had employed people specifically to work on the problems in developing countries. The Government of the 1980s had steered research towards focussing on the benefits for ‘UK PLC.’ However, the focus had now shifted again with the recognition that there was an intellectual resource base in the UK that should be used to help developing countries. Around 6-7% of the work done now at Rothamsted contributed to this agenda.
89. Howard Dalton – Africa and developing countries were likely to be high up on the agenda for the UK presidency of the G8, but there was possibly more work to be done on this. DFID was an important player in this, although agricultural biotechnology research was a small part of their overall budget.
The FSEs highlighted some important implications for conventional agriculture – what is Defra doing in light of this to address the issues around biodiversity, different cropping methods etc?
90. Howard Dalton – Defra were debating these issues internally, but were at an early stage. Crop ecology based research was helping farmers to address some of these fundamental issues.
Sustainable development forms the underlying core of Defra’s policies yet the research drivers mentioned so far did not cover the social, economic and wider rural influences. If the Curry report is taken seriously this needs to change significantly.
91. Howard Dalton – Defra considered the rural agenda very important. Defra was a much more ‘joined-up’ department than before- for example the economists had merged with the policy divisions, which was helping to tackle these issues. The joint NERC, ESRC and BBSRC Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme was also cutting across many strands and was being aligned more closely with Defra’s activities to ensure better coordination.
92. Ian Crute –Social sustainability could only be delivered if there was economic sustainability. However, there was a commonality of purpose between the social science and the ‘hard science’.
How do the high-level research agendas filter through and evolve into individual grant proposals?
93. Howard Dalton –High level objectives were set by ministers and senior officials and in Defra were essentially focussed on ensuring a competitive and safe food supply chain which met consumers’ needs. This was fed into the research agendas and was translated down to the actual research that was carried out. Defra’s Science Directorate acted as the ‘translators’ of the high level objectives.
How is this high-level aim balanced with objectives such as the Water Framework Directive?
94. Howard Dalton - There were obviously other high-level objectives. The appropriate level to decide on what research was conducted was the research programme setting process, in which decisions would be made on what research was most needed to support the policy objectives. Defra was also working more closely with social scientists and economists and indeed there were many working within the Department now.
