Wesseler Justus, Politiek Hidde, Zilberman David
Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands.
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States.
Front Plant Sci. 2019 Dec 20;10:1597. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.01597. eCollection 2019.
New plant breeding technologies (NPBTs) are increasingly used for developing new plants with novel traits. The science tells us that those plants in general are as safe as than those once developed using "conventional" plant breeding methods. The knowledge about the induced changes and properties of the new plants by using NPBTs is more precise. This should lead to the conclusion that plants developed using NPBTs should not be regulated differently than those developed using "conventional" plant breeding methods. This contribution discusses the economics of regulating new plant breeding technologies. We first develop the theoretical model and elaborate on the different regulatory approaches being used and compare their advantages and disadvantages. Then we provide a perspectives on EU regulation around mutagenesis-based New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBT), formed by new insights from a survey among Dutch plant breeding companies. The survey measures the attitude of breeding companies towards the ruling of the EU Court of Justice that subjected the use of CRISPR-Cas in the development of new plant varieties under the general EU regulations around GMOs. The results show that plant breeders experience a financial barrier because of the ruling, with perceived negative impact on competitiveness and investments in CRISPR-Cas as a result. The degree of negative impact differs however significantly among seed-sectors and company sizes. One of the most striking results was the relative optimism of companies in the sector about more lenient legislation in the next five years, despite the stated negative effects.
新植物育种技术（NPBTs）越来越多地用于培育具有新特性的新植物。科学告诉我们，一般来说，这些植物与那些曾经使用“传统”植物育种方法培育的植物一样安全。关于使用NPBTs诱导新植物产生的变化和特性的知识更为精确。由此应该得出这样的结论：使用NPBTs培育的植物不应受到与使用“传统”植物育种方法培育的植物不同的监管。本文探讨了新植物育种技术监管的经济学问题。我们首先建立理论模型，阐述所采用的不同监管方法，并比较它们的优缺点。然后，我们根据对荷兰植物育种公司的一项调查得出的新见解，对欧盟围绕基于诱变的新植物育种技术（NPBT）的监管提出看法。该调查衡量了育种公司对欧盟法院裁决的态度，该裁决将在欧盟关于转基因生物的一般法规下使用CRISPR-Cas培育新植物品种的行为纳入其中。结果表明，由于该裁决，植物育种者面临财务障碍，从而对竞争力和CRISPR-Cas方面的投资产生了负面影响。然而，负面影响的程度在种子行业和公司规模之间存在显著差异。最引人注目的结果之一是，尽管有上述负面影响，但该行业的公司对未来五年更为宽松的立法相对乐观。
