AgBioForum, vol. 13, no.4 (2010)
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Special Issue: 2010 International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR) Conference. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the contents of this issue.
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Item Transgenic trees for biomass : the effects of regulatory restrictions and court decisions on the pace of commercialization(AgBioForum, 2010) Sedjo, Roger A.Wood has great potential as a bioenergy source, both as a feedstock for liquid biofuels for the transport sector and also as biomass, a direct source of energy that can be used to produce electric power. Trees, however, are generally slow growing, and some species that do grow quickly are not widely adapted, hence the interest in genetically engineered (GE) trees. This article examines the regulatory process and the effects on development and commercialization of regulatory restrictions and recent court decisions. It discusses recent US legal cases, which -- although not directly involving transgenic trees -- have implications for tree deregulation and the pace of commercialization.Item Targets and mandates : lessons learned from EU and US biofuels policy mechanisms(AgBioForum, 2010) Ziolkowska, Jadwiga; Meyers, William H. (William Henry), 1941-; Meyer, Seth Dominic; Binfield, JulianThe United States and the European Union have taken different paths in the design and implementation of biofuel policy measures. In the European Union, a target has been set for the contribution of renewable energy in transport use, but policy implementation mechanisms are diverse and decentralized. Mandatory targets have been approved voluntarily by several EU Member States, but these mandatory targets are national initiatives and not an obligation from the European Union. The US biofuel policy has specified targets in absolute quantities rather than in percentages of use, as was done in the European Union. Because of this quantitative target and the fact that the implementation is through a mandate rather than a less-binding target, compliance is assured, but different implementation problems may arise that may not occur in the EU system. In this article, we provide an analytical discussion on lessons learned from the current and previous EU and US biofuel policy mechanisms and consider the possibilities, opportunities, and challenges for future policy development in both economies.Item Resolving FTO barriers in GM canola(AgBioForum, 2010) Galushko, Viktoriya; Gray, Richard, 1957-; Smyth, Stuart J.The development of intellectual property (IP) protection in plant breeding brought much-needed private investment into canola research in the 1980s, but at the same time, fragmented research and IP ownership. In the 1990s, the biotechnology industry tried to address the growing IP fragmentation through a series of mergers and acquisitions. As we show through a survey of canola breeders, these changes reduced the sharing of knowledge in both the public and private sector, significantly increasing the cost of conducting breeding research. In the past decade, firms have clearly moved away from mergers and acquisitions towards cross-licensing of IP. What remains to be seen, is whether these agreements get to the root of the freedom-to-operate (FTO) problem that exists in agricultural biotechnology.Item Resistance management and sustainable use of agricultural biotechnology(AgBioForum, 2010) Frisvold, George B.; Reeves, Jeanne M.While crop biotechnologies deployed worldwide with herbicide-resistant (HR) or insect-resistant (IR) traits have provided significant economic and environmental benefits, these benefits are threatened by the evolution of insect and weed resistance. This article examines why field-level resistance has not posed a problem for IR crops but has become a growing problem for HR crops. Key factors include compatibility of the technologies with integrated pest and weed management and the regulatory and institutional setting in which they were deployed.Item Public vs. private agbiotech research in the United States and European Union, 2002-2009(AgBioForum, 2010) Frisio, Dario; Ferrazzi, Giovanni; Ventura, Vera; Vigani, MauroWe provide an in-depth analysis of biotechnology patents filed in the European Patent Office (EPO) and US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), building a comprehensive dataset of more than 7,000 patents for the period 2002 through 2009. Results show a larger number of patents filed with the USPTO than the EPO. The private sector is more market oriented and owns the majority of the intellectual property (IP) rights, while public research is mainly focused on innovations useful in specific agricultural landscapes.