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Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC) | |||
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HORIZON SCANNING SUB GROUP MEETING Present Ed Dart John Gilliland Julie Hill (Convenor) Chi Chi Iweajunwa Roger Turner Anne Packer (Secretariat) Mileva Novkovic (Secretariat) Apologies for absence 1. There were no apologies. Thanks were recorded to Derek Langslow who had stood down from the sub-group because of pressures of other work. Previous meeting 2. The draft minutes of the previous meeting were confirmed. They had already been posted on the website. Discussion of updated study 3. Members noted that the Draft Work Plan, accompanied by the Horizon Scanning Study, would be issued for consultation during the week beginning 8 April. The further work identified below would therefore need to be completed by 5 April. Commentary and tables on Industry structure 4. Roger Turner had provided new text and tables on consolidation of the agricultural industry. The text was agreed and the tables were considered alongside the existing tables on industry structure. Some changes to these were agreed which Mileva Novkovic would work on in the first instance before sending to Roger Turner and Ed Dart for further review. Action: Roger Turner, Ed Dart and Secretariat Trees 5. Brian Johnson, English Nature, had supplied a further table from M Rautner containing information about biotechnology applications to trees. Members wished to use this table as a basis for the existing table in the horizon scanning study. Roger Turner agreed to mesh the two tables together, ensuring that common names and the year of first release were retained. Action: Roger Turner Comments and input from CEH and elsewhere 6. Comments received to date confirmed that the study was sufficiently comprehensive for publication alongside the Work Plan. Members considered comments on the study provided by Ian Cooper, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Oxford. Ed Dart agreed to use these to cross check against the tables in the Horizon Scanning Study to see if there were further classes of work that should be added. Julie Hill would consider whether the comments contained anything that should be usefully added to the commentaries. Anne Packer would check whether Ian Cooper’s comments could be made available on request to interested members of the public. 7. Comments had also been received from Professor Howard Thomas, Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, Aberystwyth. Julie Hill would consider how his comments on the study’s coverage of the globalisation of trade and choice of agricultural systems (points one and two of his e-mail) could be taken into account. 8. Additional information had been received from Klaus Amman informing the sub-group of a recent publication by Kornelia Smalla and others about a new bacteria resistant potato and associated safety assessments. Ed Dart agreed to consider its relevance for the study’s tables and to insert if necessary. 9. Members agreed that the abc (Agricultural Biotechnology Council) should be invited to comment on the Horizon Scanning Study, as part of the forthcoming consultation process. abc should be sent a personalised letter and sub-group members would be willing to meet representatives of abc to discuss the abc response, as appropriate. Action: Ed Dart, Julie Hill and Secretariat Updated information from ISAAA 10. Updated information received from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) on the “Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2001” had been incorporated into the text. Members were content with the revised wording. List of GMOs approved for commercial production in EU and USA for tables 2 and 3 at end of Annex A 11. DEFRA had provided tables showing lists of GMOs approved for, and leading up to approval for, production in the EU. These would be reproduced in the study together with the explanatory flow charts. DEFRA had also provided a reference to a US Food and Drug Administration website giving similar information relating to the USA. This information would not be reproduced but the website reference would be added to the list of useful resources. Roger Turner would cross check with relevant information from the website to ensure that the Horizon Scanning Study was as complete as possible. Action: Roger Turner Annex B (Summary of Biotechnology techniques) 12. Members decided not to include an Annex B as the information was in the text. A description of cloning was not needed for this study except in the glossary. References 13. The Secretariat would complete the referencing and alert members of any case in which referencing was proving difficult. Action: Secretariat Glossary 14. Roger Turner would check this again. Action: Roger Turner DEFRA paper on trans-boundary issues (circulated on 6 March) 15. The sub-group had requested from DEFRA information on transboundary issues and ACRE’s latest thinking on these issues in order to help the group understand what developments the study should take into account. The response from DEFRA was not sufficiently precise or clear to provide much help to the sub-group. Julie Hill would follow this up initially with DEFRA and this might be followed by a letter. The kind of issues the sub-group would like some assistance with included:
Action: Julie Hill and Secretariat AOB 16. Concerns were expressed about the text in the Horizon Scanning Study commentary in relation to IPR and the balance of public/private research and also the priority given to these issues in the Work Plan. The Secretariat would revise the wording in the Horizon Scanning Study and draft Work Plan and Ed Dart would write to Malcolm Grant, AEBC Chair, about his concerns about the Work Plan for AEBC to consider at its May or July meeting. These concerns would not affect the current order of priorities in the draft Work Plan or the consultation timetable. Other drafting changes 17. Members would let the secretariat know of any further drafting changes they felt were needed. Next Steps 18. The covering letter for the Work Plan consultation would state that the accompanying Horizon Scanning Study was not intended to be exhaustive or comprehensive. 19. Members were aware of the timetable and would send their contributions towards completion of the study to the Secretariat by 5 April. 20. The study would be reviewed periodically by the AEBC, probably by a sub-group but not necessarily one comprising the same members who were all now working on other AEBC groups. 21. Finally, as this was the last meeting of the sub-group, Julie Hill thanked all members for their contributions to the sub-group’s work. AEBC Secretariat March 2002 |
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