What’s

Holdup?the

Why is it that the

innovative traits flooding

seed companies’ pipelines

have yet to hit the market?

It IS WIDElY REcoGNIzED that new traits developed through biotechnology will be important to address challenges posed by population increase, climate change, abiotic stress, water shortages and the decline of arable farm land. Acceptance of biotechnology food crops has steadily grown in both the developed and developing world since 1996, and many in the industry predict the biotech market could reach $50 billion by 2025.

That is IF the second generation of GM technology now in the pipeline – such as drought tolerance, yield enhancement, and additional herbicide and insect resistance – reaches the market.

There have been countless announcements on the exciting, innovative traits seed companies are working on. However, not many of these traits have come to market yet. Many companies have even formed partnership with other companies to work on projects, yet still little has come to fruition. So what is the hold up?

Meeting Timelines

In the U.S., one of the main time-consumers is the need for collecting multiple year data, and as the traits become more complex, it takes more time to figure out if they work.

“It’s not simply a regulatory issue,” explains Tom Klevorn of the Context Network. “These things that are a little further out there – like nitrogen utilization and drought tolerance – we just don’t know how well and, in some cases, even if they work yet. The very fastest biotech traits took five to six years [to commercialize] but the ones today are a lot more complicated than killing a bug. They’re tough to prove because they are more complex and have to provide more substantial benefit.”

“The ‘low hanging’ fruit has been taken,” agrees Delmer Gross, Product Development Manger at BASF Plant Science. “Namely, herbicide tolerance and European corn borer resistance, through Bt, were among the first GMO products. Corn rootworm resistance was the next released. Several companies are working on drought resistance and some are working on yield enhancement. These are complex traits, which are certainly doable but not as ‘easy’ as the first single gene GMOs.”

According to Malcolm Devine, Vice-President of Agricultural Crops at Performance Plants, it’s also about proving value, and he says delays are coming from the fact that companies are still struggling with how to extract value from these new traits. “The first set of GM traits proved to be of high value immediately. For example, with herbicide tolerance you can prove how much you save on weed control. But for this next set of traits like drought and frost tolerance, the value is harder to assess. They might be quite valuable in some years, and less in others if there is frost or not.”

Since these new traits may only add value some of the time, some farmers might choose crop insurance over using the trait. “With high value traits like herbicide tolerance, companies are happy to absorb the costs. However, with a trait, that’s harder to put value on. Some companies have reservations whether it’s worth investing,” adds Devine.

But it’s not always a matter of investing fortitude – in some cases the lack of biotech trait introduction has been a matter of convincing the world GMOs are safe. Klevorn says that traits such as Roundup Ready wheat could be in the market but, “No