AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT BIOTECHNOLOGY COMMISSION

TWENTY-SEVENTH COMMISSION MEETING

24th FEBRUARY 2005

THE THISTLE HOTEL, VICTORIA, LONDON

Draft MINUTES

1. The Chair welcomed everyone to the Commission’s twenty-seventh meeting and thanked them for attending.



2. Apologies had been received from: John Gilliland, Sue Mayer, Helen Browning and Paul Rylott.



3. The minutes of the last Commission meeting had been finalised with all comments incorporated into them. The Commission agreed they were an accurate record of proceedings.



4. The Chair announced that this would be the last meeting attended by Professor Jeff Maxell and on behalf of the whole Commission, thanked him for his outstanding contribution to the AEBC since its inception in June 2000. Professor Maxwell responded by thanking the Chair and expressing his pleasure in working with all members and secretariat over the past five years. He thought that the AEBC had produced some excellent reports and had managed to debate and work through some very contentious issues, which had not always been recognised.



5. It was also announced that Laura McMahon from the secretariat would be leaving the Civil Service. The Chair thanked Mrs McMahon for her work with the Commission and wished her well for the future.


Matters of Report


6. Ms ChiChi Iweajunwa’s term of office had ended on January 31 2005. Ms. Iweajunwa was thanked for her contributions to the Commission, especially in the early stages of the AEBC although sadly ill health had prevented her attending more recent meetings.



7. The new EU Agriculture Commissioner – Mariann Fischer Boel - had been reported to be considering proposing an EU-wide Law on coexistence of GM and non-GM crops. Although it was too early to say exactly what the legislation would contain, it is likely that it could define buffer zones between GM and non-GM crops and tackle liability issues.



8. The secretariat had received updates from Defra and the devolved administrations (paper AEBC 05/01) . No points of discussion resulted from the information given.



9. In January a five-year strategy to strengthen the relevance of SEERAD’s future research programme to policy development had been announced. In short, the strategy aims to ensure public funded research is linked directly to the development of policy in the key areas of environment, agriculture and land use.



10. The Chair invited Judy Britton (DTI) and Dr. Linda Smith (Defra) to give and update on the review of the AEBC and its future. Mrs Britton explained that during several official-level meetings between sponsor departments to discus the review’s recommendations, a range of issues had been examined, which included looking at the wider context of sustainable agriculture, current and future EU regulation, Government’s policy on GM and considering what changes have occurred since the AEBC was formed. There had also been discussions with other advisory bodies and consideration on the future restructuring of Defra and the Office of Science and Technology (OST). It was important to ensure that the legacy of openness and transparency and the level of public engagement around the issues of agriculture and biotechnology were maintained should the AEBC be dissolved and replaced or incorporated into another advisory body. Scientific advice and horizon scanning were other issues being looked at. The views of the AEBC, expressed at their December meeting and in the chair’s letter to Ministers on the review, were being taking into account.



11. Mrs Britton explained that in the recommendations to Ministers, advice had been given that there should be agreement on the AEBC’s future before the next Commission meeting on the 21 March 2005 and this should include a commitment to the future handling of the issues currently covered by the AEBC. However, an announcement before this date could not be guaranteed. The response was likely to recommend that the AEBC complete its work-programme by 30 April 2005.



12. Members felt very strongly that any announcement from Government and the Devolved Administrations in March should not merely announce the cessation of the AEBC but clearly set out how and when its legacy will be taken forward. The Chair requested that this be conveyed to Ministers. It was also imperative that any decision was reached collectively by all the departments which currently supported the AEBC, and that any different perspectives of the Devolved Administrations were highlighted.


Non-food Agriculture


13. The Chair Invited Corr Willbourn Research and Development to give a presentation on their findings during the public engagement exercise into public attitudes to Non-Food Agriculture (NFA). A Copy of the draft report can be found at www.aebc.gov.uk/aebc/meetings/05_02_papers.html



14. During discussion the following points were made:



15. The use of case studies to illustrate the wide range of applications for biotechnology and non-food agriculture was justified, although some felt that individual cases could have influenced participants too strongly. The case studies had been chosen to illustrate the range of possibilities that could arise from the use of non-food crops and attempt to gauge the public’s feeling on whether and in what circumstances biotechnology was acceptable. Participants often asked for more information, and this could not always be provided. However, this was not a problem because, though views from the exercise on specific case studies were interesting, the overall objective was to get an insight into participants' values. It was not the intention to provide answers or expose factually incorrect views. The report should make this clear. Overall, members felt that the study showed the pervasiveness of broadly environmental values (though not necessarily to the extent of individuals making lifestyle changes) among participants. It also gave insights into and how people think and make judgements about non-food agriculture.



16. The exercise had brought out people’s ability to rationalise the issues but also on occasion to hold contradictory views. There were occasions however when individuals had changed their opinion on a particular issue very quickly when information from expert sources had been available. It would have been interesting to explore and expose the reasons for people’s contradictions, as this would allow a greater understanding into the ways in which the public form opinions and the issues that concern them the most. Unfortunately time and budget constraints prevented this.



17. More was needed in the report on methodology, about how the workshops were actually conducted and when the researchers and stakeholders intervened e.g. to correct false assumptions, challenge contradictions.



18. It was felt that the report should be published under the authorship of Corr Willbourn but with an introduction from the Chair which set out how and why the work was commissioned and how it fitted into the AEBC’s workplan as a whole. The secretariat would collate comments from Members and experts that attended the workshops in order that Corr Willbourn could incorporate then into their final version with an aim to publishing the whole report by the end of April 2005.


Research Agendas Plant Breeding Case Study

19. Matthew Freeman explained that the case study had been revised following earlier comments from the Commission, plus a large amount of input and information from breeders and academics in the field. In discussion, the following main points were raised:



20. The paper needed to distinguish more clearly between global trends and the UK industry as there were marked differences between the two. References to ‘multinationals leading the field’ also needed to be clarified as this suggested the very large ag-biotech companies such, whereas in the UK the plant breeding agenda was driven by a number of smaller, European-owned companies, including e.g. farmers cooperatives such as Limagrain.



21. It was agreed that breeders targets seemed to still be largely driven by yield rather than environmental objectives. However, it was felt that this was largely due to an unstable policy framework for agriculture, which was felt to still be favouring productionist agriculture. Industry and academia were able to work towards more sustainable targets in plant breeding, but the right policy drivers needed to be in place at a Europe wide level to encourage this at the market level. The policies needed to be stated explicitly and then industry incentivised to work towards them.



22. It was felt that parts of the paper suggested the ‘deficit model’ of public engagement and should be rephrased to correct this



23. Some disagreed with the suggestion in the paper that there was a gap between basic and applied research. Some Members also questioned whether the link between basic and applied science had been present at PBI.


Research Agendas discussion on progress and publication

24. Matthew Freeman began with an overview of progress. The modular structure of the workstream was discussed and it was felt that this had worked well, but that it would be useful for each paper to have some reference made to the other strands of work, plus a summary of the main points and how it fed into the conclusions.



25. The information paper had been the first output of the workstream and had been a useful basis for the rest of the project. However, it would now not be updated.



26. The information and analysis paper would be slightly updated to reflect comments from the consultation and would form part of the final output.



27. The analysis of consultation responses paper was agreed to be an excellent summary of the responses and required no further work. However, it was suggested that a list of all those invited to respond (as well as those who did respond) should be annexed to the report, and that it should be noted that consultation responses had been placed on the website and was open to all.



28. The case studies had been updated – the plant breeding paper had been tabled for this meeting and the soil science case study would be circulated for discussion at the next research agendas group meeting. Both demonstrated important points to be included in the conclusions and recommendations. It would be important to note that the case studies had not simply been desk-based research, but had involved input from experts in the field. The revised drafts would be sent back to the experts for comments, but some felt it would also be useful to have them reviewed in some additional way. This was to be discussed further at the next research agendas group meeting.



29. The public and stakeholder engagement exercise was now complete and the final report would be discussed at the next research agendas group meeting. The workshops had been attended by several Members and they felt that it had been a useful day and the interaction of stakeholders and the public had brought out some useful themes. They reported that participants had felt that the principles of openness and engagement should be adhered to, but were realistic in their expectations. They did not want to make decisions but to contribute their views. All had felt they should be involved at the strategic level, but were more sceptical about their involvement at the project/grant level.



30. The conclusions and recommendations paper would draw more heavily on the case studies and public engagement work once they were completed.



31. It was agreed that that longer, background information paper would not be published but would remain on the AEBC website.



32. It was agreed that the Conclusions and Recommendations paper would be published in a ‘glossy’ format, and suggested that sufficient hard copies of the other supporting papers should also be made available. The research agendas group would discuss these issues further at their next meeting.



33. It was also suggested that the conclusions and the case studies could be submitted for publication in suitable journals as part of the publicity for the work.


Research Agendas Conclusions and Recommendations

34. A brief summary of each of the recommendations is noted below, followed by a summary of the main points of discussion. Recommendations 6-11 were discussed in the context of the session with Julia Goodfellow and are noted in the following section.


Recommendation 1 – a diversity of drivers was healthy and no one driver should be allowed to dominate.


35. The consultation responses had suggested that there was broad agreement to the four main drivers identified by the Commission. It was suggested that the science and society driver was more accurately reflected by a phrase such as “public aspirations for science in society”.



36. There was general agreement with this recommendation but it was felt that it needed to be clarified that the ‘research agenda’ discussed was the agenda that was actually funded by research funders, rather than something more aspirational.


Recommendation 2 – Support for basic research should be continued even where it has no obvious practical value, and should be protected from short-term influences.


37. There was agreement that basic research should be supported. It was different in nature from applied research and public influences may not be as relevant, however mechanisms were still needed to ensure it was accountable.



38. A point should be made that scientific excellence should be the main driver, but this should not be divorced from societal aspirations.


Recommendation 3 – It is important to ensure technologies do not become ends in themselves.


39. This recommendation was agreed.


Recommendation 4 – There was a danger of the drive for wealth creation becoming over-dominant and sustainability needed to be given equal weight.


40. It was agreed that too great a focus on wealth creation (in the narrow sense of economic benefit) was not desirable as it could lead to a lack of focus on areas of ‘public good’ research. However, there was some debate over the terminology that was best used to describe this.



41. Some felt that sustainability was the most appropriate term as it was already used by Government and incorporated the public good, and quality of life concepts, as well as wealth creation. Furthermore it highlighted the trade-offs between environmental, social and economic benefits enabling them to be considered in a more holistic integrative fashion.



42. Others felt that, in order to highlight the concern that environmental and social benefits were not receiving enough emphasis, another ‘public good’ driver should be recommended to overtly state what was in danger of being left out. The economic aspects of sustainability were covered by ‘wealth creation’ but there was no term for the social and economic pillars of sustainability so explicitly adding the notion of public good would be beneficial.


Recommendation 5 – Applied research should receive public funding where it contributes to the sustainability of farming.


43. Some members did not agree with the suggestion that there was currently a gap in ‘near market’ research, but agreed that there was potential for this to be a risk in certain areas. Therefore it was proposed the recommendation was rephrased to suggest near market research in the public sector ‘should not be ruled out’.



44. It was felt that where a need was identified, the public sector should look to providing either the research incentives, or else implement policies which would provide the market incentives that would lead to such work being conducted in the private sector.


Research Agendas discussion with Julia Goodfellow and Monica Winstanley from BBSRC
45. Chairman Malcolm Grant introduced Julia Goodfellow, Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and Monica Winstanley, Head of External Relations at BBSRC.



46. Julia Goodfellow began by saying that the BBSRC had a budget of approximately £300m. The key areas were high quality research and training, as well as knowledge transfer and innovation. Public and stakeholder engagement was also important.



47. When she had arrived at BBSRC in 2002 she realised that an agricultural strategy was required and they had commissioned the sustainable agriculture review, led by Professor Chris Pollock. They had not yet reviewed follow up to this, but the new agriculture strategy panel provided a forum for strategic overview of agricultural research.



48. Another new strategy panel had been established on bioscience for society and for the first time societal concerns would have the means to input into BBSRC strategy at a high level. The BBSRC had also made progress with its work on public engagement.



49. Matthew Freeman then provided a brief background to the Research Agendas project. He said that through the Commission’s previous work, many people had mentioned that at the root of the problem were issues over the wrong sort of research being carried out. The AEBC therefore decided to look into why research was carried out, how research decisions were made and how agendas were set. With the conclusions of the project, the aim was to consider what the drivers were, whether they were appropriately balanced and what the implications of this were.



50. A question and answer session then followed - the questions asked by the Commission are noted in italics and a brief summary of answers from Julia Goodfellow and Monica Winstanley are noted below.


Has the policy influence on research agendas of BBSRC increased?


51. Julia (?) felt that independence of the Research Councils from Government was maintained, with the Council and Strategy Board making decisions on the research agendas of the BBSRC. She did not feel government policy was a major driver for BBSRC funding overall. However, it was noted that for some institutes it could have a major influence, for example IGER received 45% of its funding from Defra.



52. BBSRC also participated in a number of collaborative funding schemes, some with industry, but others with policy partners and interdisciplinary projects such as in the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) project.



53. A major issue was however the balance between ‘top-down’ and responsive mode ‘bottom-up’ research, something that all Research Councils constantly endeavoured to maintain.



54. It was felt that although the sustainable agriculture review did look at policy, it was more about what basic research needed to be done to meet strategic needs in sustainable agriculture.



55. A sustainable soil science cross-institute programme had been established between Rothamsted and IGER. In addition, the soil physics expertise at Silsoe had been transferred to Rothamsted in closure of the former institute.


How had the points of emphasis changed in BBSRC since its inception in 1994?


56. It had been formed from parts of Science and Engineering RC and Agriculture and Food RC and it was an achievement that it had worked as well as it had. In the first few years there had been an inevitable and necessary period of ‘settling down’ into the new ways of working. In 2002 Julia felt that change was needed and there was no vision for the biosciences. A new strategy ‘Towards predictive biology’ was formed.



57. This strategy was important for agricultural biology, e.g. in the plant and crop sciences where underpinning basic research tools and databases were developed that could be used in a range of different sectors.


Have you noticed any gaps in expertise?


58. There was a lack of expertise for example in informatics and mathematics, whole animal physiology, plant physiology, plant breeding and field trials, chemistry (for example that which was relevant to soil science). There was also a rather reductionist way of thinking and researchers needed to be encouraged to move to a integrative and systems biology approach.



59. There were different reasons why this was the case – in informatics there was a problem in recruiting people as they were drawn to the private sector, which paid more. In mathematics this was also the case, but there were further problems at school level.


Was there a barrier in terms of eligibility for grant applications, e.g. mathematicians working in biology could not apply cross council for funding from EPSRC?


60. It was difficult for EPSRC as they had no institutes themselves so had difficulty in making reciprocal arrangements with other research councils. However BBSRC had come to an arrangement where their institute staff could bid to EPSRC and get their proposals reviewed under their systems, though BBSRC would actually pay for the resulting grants. BBSRC also had a collaborative arrangement with NERC so that bids could be submitted to both councils and there was no duplication and no destablisation of the system.


Is wealth creation a major driver? And what do you take this to mean?


61. Wealth creation for BBSRC was innovation and knowledge transfer, and includes wealth creation for the public good and “UK Plc”. |Not enough emphasis was put on the financial savings that can be made by some projects e.g. building the Thames barrier and preventing flooding had created wealth by avoiding a great deal of expenditure.



62. Over the last 7years the biggest increase in BBSRC funding had been in responsive mode fundamental research. They did not fund much applied research directly, but encouraged and empowered scientists to follow up their work in a more applied field. For example, BBSRC trained its scientists with an understanding of IPR issues and there were a number of follow-on funds and schemes. When bidding for funding, scientists were encouraged to think about the wealth creating potential, as well as societal and policy issues etc.



63. Although there was much Government rhetoric around wealth creation, Julia Goodfellow did not believe this pressure filtered down to the actual research that was funded in the research councils. There may be an overemphasis on wealth creation at central Government, strategic level, but decisions on grant-giving committees were based primarily on scientific excellence.



64. There were 7 research committees under certain themes, but no specific amount of money was allocated to each – rather, competitions were run at the same time across all themes and funding was allocated by ensuring an equal success rate across each of them. There were also a number of specific initiatives (though BBSRC did not run thematic programmes in the same way as NERC) but it was difficult to determine what exactly was the driving force behind these as they were affected by many different factors.


How do you feel about balancing the benefits that come from having a number of different funders in the field, versus the better co-ordination that may arise from something more overarching?


65. Even if there were an overarching sustainable agriculture committee, it would need to be split into a number of different areas so it would be fairly artificial. What was really required was a strategy and a more collaborative approach. Julia felt people were moving toward this, for example Defra and SEERAD had been involved in reviewing areas of their work.



66. The sustainable agriculture panel would consider whether BBSRC was meeting its objectives in this area. There was an operational plan, (on a 1 year rolling programme), but 3 year delivery plans were soon to be brought in as part of the management changes driven by OST.


Can you tell us about the new Bioscience and Society panel?


67. Previously the Advisory Group on Public Concerns had been chaired by the Chief Executive and provided input into the decision making at a lower level. The new Bioscience and Society strategy panel had an independent chair and would feed into the high-level strategy board.



68. BBSRC would be open to wider membership, including lay members on its strategy panels and other boards. However it might be difficult to appoint members to Council as this was done my Ministerial appointment through the Nolan process.


How do you feel about the AEBC’s recommendation 6 which suggests that meetings and papers should be open and in the public domain?


69. This would be difficult at Council level. BBSRC was an employer of thousands of people, and responsible for some limited companies and charities. They therefore had a duty of care as an employer and it would be inappropriate to discuss some of the institutional management issues in public. There might also be some commercially sensitive information.



70. However, at the strategy level there was potential to be more open. Agendas and minutes had been made public from January 2005 and they were moving towards having papers available in the public domain. Where material was restricted, the reasons for this would be stated, but it was not currently BBSRC policy.



71. It was also necessary to build the confidence of the Members of the panels so that they were comfortable meeting in public.


Recommendation 7 was for a short summary of research projects, in easy to understand terminology, that included explanation of how it contributed to sustainability goals. BBSRC already does this, but how accessible is it? Is there any information on projects that are not funded?


72. This was already something that BBSRC required and a list of all projects were available on their website. However, it would be difficult to provide information on grants that were not awarded as this was personally and commercially sensitive. Even at the strategy level it would be difficult.



73. In June 2005 there would be a dissemination event on the Gene Flow initiative. This had been a major consultation exercise to plan research topics. However, it was possible that even if the plan was to cover a wide range of research, the projects that were eventually funded may not cover the whole range (e.g. because of lack of applications in certain areas).


Did the focus on scientific excellence lead to gaps in certain areas of science due to limited grant applications, or quality of applications?


74. Building capacity was important and if an area was identified as having a low number or quality of applications, then support would be offered to scientists in this area. For example in the stem cell initiative, the main aim was to build capacity as it was an area where the UK were ahead of the rest of the world (due to the legislative situation).



75. ‘Sunsetting’ was difficult however and BBSRC would welcome advice on this.


The emphasis in crop science, for example, seemed to be on improved yield – do you feel there is a case for more environmental research in agriculture? Who should do it?


76. Julia agreed that there needed to more research into low input, sustainable agriculture. It was up to the private sector to decide what they did, but if concerns arose and gaps were evident, the public sector needed to consider whether to fund some research in that area.



77. There was a position on Council for a farmer – this was currently David Brightman.


How much research for organic farming was funded by BBSRC?


78. IGER had a lot of organic contracts, mainly Defra funded. However much of the work BBSRC funded was fundamental research relevant to a variety of agricultural systems. Ultimately sustainable, low input agriculture was the aim.


What novel public engagement methods were being used in BBSRC?


79. All the research councils under RCUK were working together to produce a strategy for public engagement. This was both for very specific research areas and broader topics. For example, the gene flow initiative included a consultation on priorities for spending in a particular area of science. The livestock genomics consultation included wider questions such as whether a particular area of research should be funded at all. Techniques such as the ‘ethical matrix’ were being used, (e.g. in the bioremediation consultation) and new techniques were being trialled.



80. There were still challenges, particularly in how to engage the wider public, and how to embed public involvement into the decision making process, rather than holding one-off events.


It is accepted that scientific excellence is key, but does this not depend on the agricultural paradigms on which the criteria for excellence are based?


81. Value judgements would be a part of all decision-making regarding ‘excellence’ and ‘quality’. However, BBSRC had a diverse range of people on the committees, with a short turnover of membership to ensure a wide set of views are covered. The peer review college had over 7000 members.



82. The Chair then concluded the session and thanked Julia and Monica for what had been a useful and informative session. The Commission then held a brief discussion reflecting on what they had heard.



83. It was noted that the definitions of wealth creation and public good needed to be clarified.



84. It was felt that BBSRC was conducting a lot of good work in the area, but there was a need for more focused coordination of sustainable agriculture research, with firm project management. However, it was not necessary to have a new committee in order to do this.



85. Recommendation 6 regarding openness of meetings would be amended in order to recognise that in some cases it would clearly be inappropriate. This degree of openness was most relevant at the strategic priority-setting level.



86. Some believed that the ‘deficit’ model of public engagement had not yet been replaced and this should be reflected in the paper.



87. It was agreed that Members would send comments to the secretariat and the conclusions and recommendations paper would be redrafted and recirculated to the commission.
    Action: Secretariat


The meeting closed at 4.30pm