Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission
Non Food Agriculture Core Group Meeting
19 July 2004
Allen & Overy’s Offices, One New Change, London EC4M 9QQ
1. Short Rotation Coppice (willow and poplar) chosen for biofuels case study. Secretariat to start working on this.
2. Secretariat to produce a short background paper on biomaterials used for packaging in the food industry.
3. Secretariat to arrange biopharma speakers for 23 August meeting.
4. Commission to hold an evidence-taking session for the bioplastics case study. Secretariat to arrange guest speakers.
5. Also hold an evidence session on the public policy and social aspect of this issue with a social scientist and a representative of a non-governmental organisation.
6. Agreed that the regulatory review would include a comparison between the regulatory barriers for genetically modified (GM) and non-GM non-food crops.
7. Agreed that Richard Burnett-Hall, who wrote the liability annex for the Commission’s coexistence and liability report, would be approached regarding the regulatory review aspect of this workstream.
8. Secretariat to contact Richard Burnett-Hall to find out how long the work would take him, to check how much he costs, and to check whether work needs to be competitively tendered.
9. The target audience for this document will be other Commission Members, government and stakeholders but it should be accessible to the public.
10. Secretariat to make the following amendments to this document:
· Add in details of what other initiatives are being under taken in this area.
· In introduction explain the opportunities and potential of this technology and possible societal benefits.
· Remove “background issues” list and incorporate these into the introduction.
· Remove “political drivers” list and add a generic paragraph on these in the introduction that explains that there are national, EU and worldwide political drivers and that these may be conflicting.
· In the current uses of non-food crops section add a sentence explaining the difference between contained and non-contained.
· Draft a possible alternative to Table 1 which focuses on one example and explains what can be made from it, e.g. starch.
· For each example in section four outline what is the driver and why this is important to the Commission. Also add in a couple of sentences on blue skies research for each example.
· Each bullet point in section 5 to be expanded into a paragraph, using generalities rather than specifics.
· Add information received during biofuels evidence taking session and from other evidence taking sessions as they occur. Also add a paragraph explaining why case study has been chosen.
TV Programme
11. The Eden project would like to meet the Core Group next month to discuss collaborating with the Commission on this work.
12. Secretariat to arrange meeting at the Eden Project in August.
13. Secretariat to contact Kew and explore the possibility of working collaboratively with them too.
14. On the afternoon of the 23 August there will be a core group meeting. During this session there will be an evidence taking session for the biopharma case study.
15. Agreed that all outputs from the workstream should be accessible to the public even if they are not necessarily targeted at the public.
