Green biotechnology

Green
biotechnology
Why modern plant breeding
cannot do without it
Preface
Farmers first began to sow their fields with genetically
modified (GM) plants in 1996. Since then, arable land
worldwide has increased to 134 million hectares. Today,
more than 14 million farmers in 25 countries reap the
benefits of “green biotechnology”. They know the benefits:
fewer pesticides, decreasing production costs, increasing
income. Furthermore: with GM plants, agriculture can
contribute towards preventing soil erosion and reduce the
emissions of greenhouse gases affecting the climate.
Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Modern plant breeding as guarantor of progress. . . . . . 4
Modern plant breeding for sustainable agriculture. . . . . 8
Genetic engineering in plant breeding:
a method, not an end in itself. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Research: in the pipeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Green genetic engineering in agricultural practice. . . . 14
Experience: greater yields, more sustainability. . . . . . . 16
Green genetic engineering:
research projects at KWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Yields even in drought. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
KWS international:
success with genetically modified varieties . . . . . . . . . 23
Europe is missing the boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
KWS and green genetic engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
KWS’ principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
In spite of these advantages, GM crops have only been
cultivated on a very limited area in Europe as of yet. But
in KWS’ view, they should not be discussed as a whole,
but based on concrete, individual cases instead: What
species of plant is it and what properties does it have?
What benefit does it offer society, the environment or
the individual farmer? This is the only way to conduct a
broad constructive discourse and arrive at mutual, socially
accepted solutions. What with the growing world population and the need to provide for it with healthy nutrition
and energy as well as the progressing climate change,
the challenges plant breeding will face in the next 50 years
are simply too great to frivolously dispense with a single
technology! This brochure is intended to provide you with
an overview of the current state of affairs in modern plant
breeding and KWS’ view on this subject. Should you have
any questions, please feel free to consult us. We are looking forward to a dialog with you.
Philip von dem Bussche
Chairman of the Executive Board KWS SAAT AG
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Modern plant breeding
as guarantor of progress
Methods and technologies in plant breeding
Genome analysis
Genetic engineering
Biotechnology
Our current agricultural crops are the result of cultural
accomplishments which never ceases to amaze: many
thousands of years ago, humankind began to breed plants
to meet their needs. At first, by selecting the best ones,
they gradually changed the appearance and properties of
the plants.
DNA diagnostics
Cell and tissue culture
Hybrid breeding
Cross breeding and
selection
When the modern natural sciences in the 19th century
began to flourish (when KWS was founded), plant breeding
methods became more advanced: people learned how to
create more variation thus achieving a larger genetic
diversity from which plants with favorable features could be
selected. The breeders then began to systematically cross
parental lines with particular properties. This resulted in
hybrid breeding, a ground-breaking method which KWS
also put to use in corn and sugarbeet breeding after World
War II. In this process, people made use of the “heterosis
effect”. The combination of unrelated homozygous inbred
lines led to increased performance in the progeny.
1856
1910
1940
1970
today
The development of a new variety takes 10–15 years
on average. A variety of methods – depending on the problem at hand – are generally used in the process.
Increasing knowledge of plant biology has brought about
such leaps of innovation in plant breeding time and time
again. Similar results are now being produced using methods which apply findings from genetics, genome research
and molecular biology.
Progress in breeding – with new technologies as well
The discoveries in biology, consistently improved methods
and continuously, long-term oriented work of breeders
have contributed to progress in breeding. This refers to
the genetically induced average increase in performance of
a generation of plants in comparison to the previous one.
This means not only higher yields, but also improved plant
health or resistance to diseases and pests.
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5
Pests
Diseases
Global challenges for agriculture
Weeds
50 %
•More people. By 2050, the world population will grow by 50 percent to more than nine billion people.
In addition, more people will be able to afford a varied diet and will eat more fruit, vegetables or meat. This means that agricultural yields will nearly have to double in the next 40 years.
40 %
37 %
20 %
Rice
Sugar cane
Sorghum
Potatoes
Corn
Oats
Wheat
Barley
0
Rye
10 %
Worldwide
harvest
Losses in yields
30 %
Approximately one third of potential harvest yields worldwide are lost to pests, plant
diseases and weeds. Modern plant research is already contributing towards reducing
these losses.
Breeding progress in many plant species such as corn and
sugarbeet continues to amount to 1.5 to 2 percent today –
year after year. Although the public scarcely perceives this
fact, for the breeders, it can only be achieved with increasingly considerable expenditure. However, considering the
vast global challenges, it is necessary to realize a similar
figure on a global scale, and probably even a much greater
one! Traditional breeding methods alone will not suffice to
achieve this objective – this can already be seen today with
wheat, where breeding progress has already bottomed out
perceptibly.
The breeders’ visionary power combined with new technologies – these are the conditions necessary to successfully develop varieties in the future.
6
• Less acreage. Arable land is limited and cannot be increased arbitrarily. Hence, available arable land per capita will continue to decrease. Shortage of land has already become a serious problem in some regions today, such as in Asia.
•Less water. Water is a limited resource. Agriculture – responsible for roughly two thirds of fresh water
consumption worldwide – will have to make do with less water in the future.
•Consequences of climate change. Agriculture will increasingly have to adjust to extreme weather condi-
tions, such as drought periods. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expects that 75 to 220 million people in Africa will be affected by drought and crop failures in the year 2020. In other regions,
more flooding is anticipated.
•Climate protection. Agriculture must also contribute towards reducing emission of greenhouse gases.
Furthermore, biomass from plants should be used more heavily for energy production in the future. In
contrast to fossil fuels, plants keep growing steadily. It is nearly carbon neutral to use them since only the amount of CO2 is released which was fixed during the growing season.
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Modern plant breeding for
sustainable agriculture
All prognoses are essentially unanimous. Agriculture is
confronted by daunting challenges globally. Considerably
more people will have to be nourished – under conditions
becoming more difficult: less acreage, less water, climate
change.
Higher yield by acre without putting greater burden on
natural resources – there is no alternative to “sustainable”
agriculture in an all-encompassing sense. A demanding
goal – interacting social, economic and technological
measures and strategies are necessary to achieve it. Progress cannot be made with schematic universal solutions
applicable for all regions and climate zones, developing
and emerging countries.
But one thing is certain: it won’t work without plant breeding. It would be ethically irresponsible to forego its potential.
Plants are at the beginning of the value chain, they are a
renewable, nearly inexhaustible source of food and
raw materials. To tap plants’ potential and to make it
accessible to the great challenges of global, sustainable
agriculture – that is the plant breeders’ great task.
KWS is also facing up to this responsibility. Since its
establishment over 150 years ago, its success has been
based on making use of innovative breeding methods
in order to supply farmers with continuously improved
seed for healthy, resistant and high-yielding crops.
World population
Arable land
Arable land per capita
(in billions)
(in billions of hectares)
(in ha)
9
1,4
1,5
1,5
0,5
6
0,3
0,2
2,5
1950
2000
2050
1950
2000
2050
1950
2000
2050
Food supply in the 21st century; Source: UNO, 2007
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Genetic engineering in plant
breeding: a method, not an
end in itself
Biotechnological methods are a matter of course in modern
plant research and plant breeding around the world. In
recent years, people have learned to better understand
the properties of plants by means of the genes involved.
Functional genome research has heavily expanded knowledge of complex molecular biological processes in the
plant. Meanwhile, breeding can be applied on this level in
order to develop plants with particular properties far more
effectively and expediently than before.
Once it has been established which genes are involved
in the development of a desired trait, the second step is
to develop plant varieties which posses precisely this trait.
Today, breeders have an array of different methods and
procedures at their disposal to accomplish this – and
genetic engineering is one of them. The special thing about
genetic engineering is that it enables a gene previously
found in other organisms to be transferred to the target
organism. It is also possible to “turn off” certain genes.
Genetic engineering is not an end in itself, but a method that
is preferred when it is more suited than others to achieve the
breeding objective in question. For instance, if the genes for
a desired trait do not appear in the gene pool of the species
in question and thus cannot be crossed into varieties.
Another advantage of genetic engineering is that interesting
genes from wild species can be introduced in to highperformance varieties. Thus, the breeding process can be
expedited considerably compared to classic crossbreeding.
This could be of great importance in the future, when the
course of climate change will alter the kinds of pests and
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plant diseases appearing in different region. Healthy new
varieties need to be readily available by then.
KWS is an international plant breeding company and competes on many markets around the world. It relies on all
internationally established breeding methods to conduct its
own research and development – and they include green
biotechnology.
Genetic engineering is the generic term for an array of
breeding methods for introducing particular genes into
the genome of plants. Whereas only genes found in the
own gene pool of a species are used in classic breeding
methods, genetic engineering can make use of transferred genes originating from other organisms, such as
bacteria or other plant species.
Genetic engineering enables a targeted course of action:
only the gene for the desired new trait is transferred. In
classic breading, the genomes of both parental lines are
combined with one another. Desirable and undesirable
traits are mixed in the breeding process.
Only plants in which genes have been transferred using genetic engineering are considered to be “genetically modified”
in the legislative sense of the word. Special legal regulations
apply to such GMOs (genetically modified organisms).
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Research: in the pipeline
All over the world working groups in private and public
research institutions and companies in the fields of plant
breeding and plant biotechnology make use of genetic
engineering in order to develop plants with enhanced
properties. Vast numbers of concepts have been examined and initial prototypes of new plant varieties have been
tested in greenhouses or field trials. Some plants resulting
from research projects are about to be introduced on the
international market.
In the meantime, it has become increasingly clear what
genetic engineering methods will be able to accomplish
in the future. Possibilities include plants
• which produce specifically effective repellents to protect themselves from pests and plant diseases so
that no (or significantly less) pesticides are needed;
12
• which can better resist heat, cold or saline soils and are adapted to unfavorable site and climatic conditions;
• which can produce nearly stable yields even during long periods of drought without needing to be irrigated;
•
which contribute towards improved nutrition through biofortification: a method of breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. Thus nutritional deficiencies can
be reduced which occur in some regions of the world.
• which produce more biomass, thus enabling more
efficient energy use;
• which produce environmentally friendly and carbon
neutral biomass with specific properties.
The research on plants utilising soil nutrients (such as nitrogen) more efficiently, thus requiring less fertilizer is in the
initial phase. There are many interesting approaches in this
field as well. Whether they reach their objectives, remains to
be seen. In any case, they will never be discovered without
plant research – and without the methods of green biotechnology.
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Green biotechnology
in agricultural practice
In 1996, the first genetically modified crops were cultivated
in the USA. In 2009, 14 million farmers in 25 countries
used GM crops, the overwhelming majority of whom
(13 million) were small-scale farmers in developing and
emerging countries. The annual global acreage has
increased to more than 134 million hectares worldwide,
equivalent to nearly four times the total area of Germany.
Green biotechnology pays off economically. This can be
seen in the rising number of farmers who opt for GM crops.
GM seed tends to be more expensive – but in return, it
reduces expenses in other areas, such as the cost of pesticides, machines and labor. But above all: yields generally
increase considerably, because plants' own mechanisms
protect them from harmful insects and more effective
weed management reduces harvest losses which used
to be considered inevitable. The decision to use GM
varieties has improved farmers’ economic situation worldwide.
In 2010, after long political delay, another GM crop was
approved for cultivation in the EU for the first time since
1998: the Amflora potato, with a modified starch composition exclusively processed in the starch industry.
GM plants have a greater significance on the import of
agricultural commodities: the EU imports approximately
35 to 40 million tons of soy stock each year, which is predominately used as feed in the meat production industry.
GM soy beans are produced almost exclusively in two
countries, the USA and Argentina. A third country, Brazil,
has now reached roughly 70 percent of GM soy production
of the countries' total soy production. From a statistical
perspective, the EU’s 490 million inhabitants use 70 kg GM
soy beans per capita every year.
Global cultivation area of GM crops
(in millions of hectares)
Green biotechnology in Europe: less cultivation, more
imports
Europe lags far behind global development in the agricultural use of GM plants. To date, only an insect-resistant Bt
corn (MON810) has been cultivated – and that only on
comparatively small acreage, with the exception of Spain.
In 2009, Germany discontinued the cultivation authorization
for MON810 corn, which had been issued in 1998 and
applies to all EU countries, even though this corn was
classified to be safe by the European Food Safety Authority
and other scientific expert committees.
125
100
75
50
25
0
Industrialized countries
Emerging and developing countries
cultivation area (in millions of hectares)
Total
25 countries with GM crop cultivation
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Source: Clive James, 2009
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Experiences: higher yields,
more sustainability
GM crops have been cultivated for 14 years – some GM
crops even extensively in some countries – and are being
used as food and feed.
Today’s commercially cultivated GM crops have thoroughly
come up to expectations so far. There isn't the slightest
indication that food and feed produced from GM plants
could be less safe than conventional products. The biosafety
examinations which all GM plants have to undergo all
over the world have proven to be reliable. Neither allergies
nor other health impairments have increased as a result
of using green biotechnology.
By now, many scientific experiments have confirmed that
the cultivation of GM crops has positive effects – on the
environment as well as for farmers.
•
160 million kilograms of insecticide (active ingredient) have been saved worldwide between 1996 and 2007
as a result of the cultivation of cotton and corn with genetically induced insect resistance.
•
As a result of GM crop cultivation fewer insecticides (protection from pests) and herbicides (to fight weeds) have been applied and thereby the use of machinery
has decreased followed by less fuel consumption. 1.1
million tons of CO2 less were emitted into the atmos-
phere in 2007.
•
No-till farming or reduced tillage have become established (particularly in the USA) thanks to more effective weed control through herbicide-tolerant GM soybeans. This improves the soil quality and carbon can be 16
sequestered in the soil. It is estimated that this effect
has mitigated the accumulation of CO2 by 13 million tons in 2007.
•
Green biotechnology especially pays off for farmers in emerging and developing countries. The cultivation of Bt cotton (genetically modified resistance to plant-feeding insects) has markedly improved the economic situation of many small-scale farmers in China, India and South Africa (see table).
Insecticide use
Yield
Profit per hectare (in US-$)
India
– 41%
+ 37 %
+ 135
China
– 65 %
+ 24 %
+ 470
South Africa
– 33 %
+ 22 %
+ 91
Socio-economic effects of Bt cotton cultivation in several countries;
Matin Qaim (University of Göttingen); summary of various studies 2003–2009
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Fungal diseases in agricultural crops: new solutions to
an old problem
Fungal pathogens are a major problem with a great number
of cultivated plant species, such as grain, potatoes, sugarbeet, grapevines and apple trees. Approximately 10,000 tons
of fungicide is used to fight them each year in Germany.
Fungal diseases cause not only major crop failures, severe
infestation can even lead to the total loss of the harvest.
Some fungal pathogens, especially those that infest grain,
produce strong toxins, known as mycotoxins. If these toxins
are still present in (ready-for-use) food and feed, they can
cause severe health problems and effect fertility in humans
and animals.
The fact that farmers are even improving their economic
results with GM crops in Europe – and in turn their
international competitiveness in particular – has been
demonstrated in Spain. It is the only EU country in which
Bt-corn has been cultivated on large scale since 1998.
In 2009, the area cultivated amounted to nearly 80,000
hectares, roughly one fifth of Spanish corn production.
A study from the Joint Research Center of the European
Commission evaluated the existing experiences in the cultivation of genetically modified Bt-corn in Spain. According
to this study, the farmers in regions with heavy pest infestation have increased their yields by an average of 6.3 percent
and improved their economic results by 13 percent.
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Plant breeders have opened up promising possibilities to
finally develop varieties with effective and enduring resistances with the new biotechnological methods – including
genetic engineering. If this succeeds, everyone will benefit:
farmers can reduce expenses for fungicides, consumers
can buy healthier food products, feed stuffs will be more
digestible and less harmful for livestock – and the impact
on the environment will be reduced.
Varieties with new resistances to fungi are not on the market
yet. Research groups and companies – including KWS –
have long been working intensively on new, innovative concepts for fungus-resistant plants. Much promising progress
has been made in just the past few years. Such new developments have already proven themselves in field trials with
different crops.
19
Green biotechnology:
research projects at KWS
KWS is working on a great number of research projects
which may open up new alternative solutions for some
of the future challenges.
Fungal resistance in sugarbeet, potatoes and wheat:
The innovative approach for effective resistance to the most
important fungal diseases of these crops is to make use
of and reinforce natural defensive reactions with which the
plants protect themselves from fungal infestation. Work is
underway to obtain resistance to sugarbeet leaf spot
disease (Cercospora beticola) in
sugarbeet, to fusarium head
blight (Fusarium graminearum)
in wheat and to late blight (Phytophthora infestans) in potatoes.
Virus resistance (rhizomania resistance) in sugarbeet:
Rhizomania is a viral disease which damages the beet
body and the root system of the sugarbeet plant and is
transmitted by a soil-borne fungus (Polymyxa betae).
It is one of the most economically significant sugarbeet
diseases in Europe. A rhizomania infestation can cause
yield losses of up to 80 percent in sensitive varieties.
KWS has already succeeded
in developing highly resistant
plants which will now be tested
further in field trials.
Winterbeet – enhanced utilization of solar energy:
At present, sugarbeet is sown in the spring and harvested
in the fall. The vegetation period
can be prolonged when the
beets are already sown in the
fall, making it possible to increase the sugar yield by 20 to 30
percent due to better photosynthetic efficiency. However, the
development of a cold-resistant
beet is no easy task. Not just
because a beet of this kind has to withstand frost and cold,
it can also not be allowed to produce any undesired inflorescence (“bolters”). In order to prevent bolting and flowering
triggered by cold stimulus, certain genes involved with
these processes have to be activated or shut off. KWS has
already succeeded at this with the first plants in its greenhouses. Many years of research and development will be
needed before new, cold-resistant sugarbeet varieties can
make their way to the market.
KWS and BASF cooperate
KWS and BASF Plant Science have agreed to a longterm cooperation in the field of plant biotechnology.
The mutual goal is to increase sugar and energy yields
in sugarbeets by 15 percent as well as to develop
drought tolerant varieties, requiring less water and
thus able to withstand periods of drought without
declining in yield.
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Yields despite drought
Farmers in regions suffering from increasing droughts
urgently need new varieties which produce nearly stable
yields even during long periods of drought and without
additional irrigation. In order to achieve this, plant researcher make use of natural strategies with which certain
plants or mosses have adapted to dryness and incorporate
the genes and regulation mechanisms involved in other
species of crops.
•
A corn variety which has been genetically modified in
this way is expected to come on the American market
in just a few years. Trials have shown that this corn
produces yields six to ten percent higher than conven-
tional varieties at the same site suffering from drought.
• Systematic field trials have been conducted in Australia with various drought-tolerant lines of GM wheat since 2007. The results are promising.
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KWS international:
success with genetically
modified varieties
KWS’ sales volume with GM varieties has been negligibly
low in Europe up to now. But it’s a different story on the
international scene: over 25 percent of the KWS Group’s
total turnover currently comes from genetically modified
varieties. The share of turnover in North America amounts
to more than 70 percent. There, the supply of GM varieties
is crucial in order to remain economically competitive.
Herbicide-tolerant sugarbeet. New sugarbeet varieties
developed by KWS in cooperation with the American company Monsanto have been on the US market since 2007.
After three years, they are grown on 470,000 hectares –
over 95 percent of the total sugarbeet acreage in the USA
(2009). There has never been such rapid and comprehensive acceptance of a genetically modified plant until now.
This sugarbeet is not sensitive to herbicides with the active
ingredient glyphosate. This property exists thanks to a
newly introduced gene originating from soil bacteria and
responsible for the formation of a particular protein. It
replaces the plants’ own similar protein and ensures that a
plant modified in this way is not impaired in its functioning
by the herbicide as others plants are. This herbicide-tolerant
sugarbeet allows farmers to keep weeds under control far
less herbicides than in conventional cultivation, it also saves
labor and reduces use of machinery – which, in turn, reduces energy consumption and CO2 emission. Moreover,
many farmers in the US have taken advantage of the new
concept’s potential to switch to reduced tillage and thus
prevent soil erosion. The use of GM sugarbeet as food and
feed is approved in the EU and eleven other countries.
But due to long approval procedures, cultivation in the EU
is not expected before the second half of this decade.
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Genetic engineering legislation in the EU:
the fundamentals
Distribution of corn and soy varieties. KWS runs a distribution company in North America known as AgReliant in
cooperation with the French breeding company Limagrain.
It markets a great number of GM corn and soy varieties with
new traits introduced by genetic engineering such as tolerance to herbicides or resistance to various harmful insects.
24
Legislation on genetically modified plants has been in effect
in the EU for many years. The community legislation has
been sharpened on numerous occasions in the past few
years.
•
Field trials with genetically modified plants must be approved by the competent national authority, which in Germany is the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit – BVL). The prerequisite is that the trial harms neither the environment nor the health of humans and animals. Each trial is examined separately.
•
GM plants may only be approved in the EU if they are just as safe as comparable conventional products according to the current state of knowledge. The decision on ap-
proval is based on a scientific biosafety check conducted by independent experts according to globally accepted standards.
•
Farmers must observe special regulations when culti-
vating GM crops in order to ensure the long-term
“coexistence” of agricultural concepts with and without GM crops. Since zero values do not occur in an open system such as nature, a political threshold value of 0.9
percent has been established for food and feed products. Consequently, a share of up to 0.9 percent of GM plant components is permitted in conventional products without specific labeling. However, this only applies if the adventitious presence of GM plant components is
verifiably “accidental” and “technically unavoidable” and the applicable GM plants have been approved in the EU and are thus classified as being safe. All EU institutions and member states (including Germany) have approved these regulations.
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Europe is missing the boat
In the mid-1990s, when the first genetically modified plants
were approved, international scientific committees established principles and methods of safety assessment, which
have been developed further and defined more precisely
since then. Many years of experience as well as state funded scientific accompanying research and safety studies
have given rise to a sufficient basis of knowledge enabling
the safety of every genetically modified plant to be checked
prior to its approval.
Scientific evaluation is the basis of every approval decision.
This also means that an approval can only be refused if there
is scientifically justified doubt to a product’s safety.
Unfortunately, a large number of politicians have continued
to disregard these guidelines of their own making! They
follow popular sentiment and defy the “current state of
knowledge”. Instead of highlighting the opportunities provided by green biotechnology and relying on scientific
findings, they adopt perceptions which are widespread
in society – though scientifically incorrect – of green
biotechnology as a “dangerous” and “yet to be studied”
technology.
The public debate on green biotechnology has largely
decreased to slogan-like opinion statements in which
specialized knowledge and well-founded arguments play
a secondary role at best. The general label of “genetic
engineering” frequently is enough to discredit a research
project or field trial in the eyes of the public.
This general public attitude has a negative effect on Germany as a research site. If this does not change, scientists
and plantbreeding companies will migrate to countries
which are research friendlier. As a time-consuming and
costly endeavor, plant research in particular requires legal
certainty that newly developed GM plants will be approved
in the EU according to scientific principles, as is established by law, and that they will also be allowed to be cultivated.
Europe is increasingly disconnecting itself from worldwide
developments in green biotechnology thus denying its
farmers access to a technology which has verifiably contributed to higher yields, better economic results and
sustainable agriculture in many countries throughout the
world.
For over twenty years, the German government has funded
a great number of independent research projects in which
potential risks and undesired consequences of GM crops
have been studied. Approximately 175 projects concluded,
that no indications have emerged showing that GM plants
have a different impact on the environment than conventional plants. Nonetheless, the results of this bio safetyresearch
are hardly taken into consideration in political decisions.
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27
KWS and the green
biotechnology
KWS’ principles
Modern plant breeding – including genetic engineering –
plays a key role in the 21st century. The growing world
population, limited natural resources, climate change –
it would be irresponsible of KWS to renounce the potential
of biotechnology to meet the global challenges of sustainable agriculture. Newly developed varieties benefit not
only consumers and the environment, they also improve
famers’ economic situations – not least in developing
and emerging countries. KWS conducts its own research
and development across the globe in order to meet the
diverse requirements. High-performing, innovative plant
breeding must be able to make use of all scientific methods
and technologies. Freedom of research – the decision on
the selection of objectives and the best-suited means to
accomplish them – is indispensable to KWS and its international competitiveness. KWS continues to focus on Germany as a hub of science and technology. This can clearly
be seen in the expansion of research and development
capacities at the company’s headquarters in Einbeck. KWS
invested € 20 million for this purpose in 2009 alone.
• Case-by-case assessment: The potential benefit of a GM crop must be considerably greater than that of previously available varieties.
It takes about 10 to 15 years to breed a new variety for agricultural use.
What we don’t research today will not be available on the markets of tomorrow.
As a family-run company, KWS continues to stand for
the careful handling of this new technology and thus seeks to promote sustainable agriculture – in an entrepreneurial
balance between economy, ecology and social responsibility.
28
•
Field trials are only allowed to be conducted if all preliminary tests in laboratories and greenhouses have shown that harmful effects can be excluded according to the current state of scientific knowledge.
• Transparency: Scientific, technical and other informa-
tion is provided to the public promptly and appropriately.
•
Dialog: KWS is open to dialog with the public. KWS has already established a board of trustees for plant breeding many years ago with which it conducts an open and constructive exchange of opinions, especially regarding issues in green biotechnology. The board of trustees is composed of independent professionals from a variety of disciplines as well as representatives of non-governmen-
tal organizations. KWS takes active part in the dialog in other forums as well through presentations and partici-
pation in conferences and discussion fora.
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Further information on this topic:
Internet:
www.kws.de
www.efsa.europa.eu
www.transgen.de
www.biosicherheit.de
www.bvl.bund.de
www.schaugarten-ueplingen.de
Brochures on green genetic engineering:
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG):
Green genetic engineering
Download: www.dfg.de
Wilhelm Gruissem, Petra Bättig-Frey:
Magere Zeiten. Die Herausforderungen der modernen Landwirtschaft
(“Tight Times: The Challenges of Modern Agriculture”)
Download: www.forschung-leben.ch
Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety
(Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit – BVL):
Grüne Gentechnik – Ein Überblick
(“Green Genetic Engineering – An Overview”)
Download: www.bvl.bund.de
Sources:
Several statements in the text of this brochure are based on published scientific studies
and articles:
Worldwide cultivation areas of genetically modified plants:
ISAAA, Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2009
JRC Scientific and Technical Reports (2008):
Adoption and performance of the first GM crop introduced in EU agriculture:
Bt maize in Spain
M. Qaim, A. Subramanian, P. Sadashivappa: Commercialized GM crops and yield.
Nature Biotechnology September 2009; Vol. 27(9), pgs. 803–804
DFG, Parliamentary evening on green genetic engineering;
with presentation of the results by Matin Qaim
Janet E. Carpenter, Peer-reviewed surveys indicate positive impact of commercialized
GM crops. Nature Biotechnology April 2010; Vol. 28(4), pgs. 319–321
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evidence, outcomes and impacts 1996–2007
KWS SAAT AG
Grimsehlstr. 31
PO Box 1463
37555 Einbeck
Telephone: +49 (0) 5561 311-0
Fax: +49 (0) 5561 311-322
[email protected]
www.kws.com
Contact addresses for KWS in your country are listed
on the internet at www.kws.com
Legal information
Publisher: KWS SAAT AG
Design: connect Werbeagentur GmbH
Photos: KWS Group Archive • Eberhard Franke
Dominik Obertreis • Fotolia
KWS SAAT AG is represented in 70 countries worldwide
with more than 40 subsidiaries and affiliates.
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www.kws.com
Research
and development
at KWS
Research and breeding have ranked
among KWS’ professed core
competencies since the company
was founded in 1856.
Because KWS
• continually reinvests around 15 percent of its turnover in research and development
• employs over 1,000 people in this field worldwide,
of which 100 work in “applied biotechnology”
•
invested approximately € 20 million in expanding research and development capacities in 2009;
this created an additional 5,000 m2 of greenhouse space and 70 new openings for qualified jobs
•
focuses its research activities on plant and genome research and takes part in numerous projects in
the national genome research initiative GABI (German
Agri-Biotech Initiative)
• has a great supply of breeding material to fall back on. This forms the basis for self-contained, independent research and development on an international level.
KWS’ research and development have traditionally been
located at the company’s headquarters.