Agricultural Biotechnology: Not Just GMOs

and Not Just for Commercial Farmers

Carl Pray
Rutgers University
pray@aesop.Rutgers.edu

The Biotech in Plants: Defined by Research

Tools and Society
Conventional plant breeding crossing and mutation
Plant tissue culture make a whole plant from a few cells
Genetic engineering (GE) also known as genetic
modification (GM) also Genetically Modified Organisms
(GMOs)
Genomics and marker assisted breeding or molecular
breeding
New tools for suppressing or strengthening the impact of
genes
RNA interference for developing new biological pesticides and fertilizers
for pest control in organic and conventional crops (mid 2000s)
New gene editing technologies (NGETs) Zinc Fingers and TALENS
(mid 2000s) and Crispr-CAS9 (2012)
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What did GMOs do?

Enabled farmers to better control insects and weeds in
soybeans, corn, cotton and canola
Millions of small farmers in India and China mainly Bt cotton
Reduces insecticide use in countries like China where pesticides were
used to control pests
Increases productivity in countries like India where pests were not
controlled by chemicals
Improves human health and environment

Biotech Crops Spread Quickly

Impact on industry: Six major biotech/seed/chemical firms

and this may go to 4 soon.
Agricultural research and development (R&D) spending by major multinational corporations in 2012
Agricultural
Country of
Principal agricultural R&D
Company
Sector of R&D activity
R&D spending *
incorporation
locations
(Million U.S. $)
Ag. chemical, crop seed,
Germany, France, Belgium,
Bayer
Germany
1,517
animal health
Netherlands, U.S., Japan
Switzerland, UK, U.S.,
Syngenta
Switzerland
Ag. chemical, crop seed
1,165
China, Australia
U.S., France, Brazil,
Monsanto
U.S.
Ag. chemical, crop seed
1,074
Argentina, India
Ag. chemical, crop seed,
BASF
Germany
1,001
Germany, U.S., India
animal nutrition
Ag. chemical, crop seed, food
DuPont
U.S.
553
U.S., France, Japan, India
ingredients
U.S., Japan, Argentina,
Dow
U.S.
Ag. chemical, crop seed
427
Puerto Rico
Note: * Estimate based on company annual reports
Source: Fuglie et al 2011 with 2012 R&D data assembled from company annual reports by Anwar Naseem

Initial impacts of Crispr-CAS9 and RNAi on Ag

Make gene editing much cheaper and faster
Crisp-CAS9 a naturally occurring component of bacteria that they use to
defend themselves from viruses
CAS9 an enzyme that cuts DNA
Crispr a piece of DNA that guides CAS to a specific place on the DNA of
the target plant and disables, amplifies or replaces genes at the right
place on the plants genome.
Can precisely edit many target genes at the same time

Could get world out of the corn, cotton, soybean GM trap and
allow important improvements in stress resistance of
vegetables orphan crops, etc

Early impact disease control and quality traits

Eliminate fusarium head blight in wheat destroys crop and
eating infected wheat causes severe diarrhea and death in
human and livestock.

Healthy soy bean oil 2017 in US

Change structure of industry?

More universities producing new technology for crops
Small ag biotech companies emerging from Universities doing
research on new gene editing technology - Calyxt, Caribou
Biosciences, Cibus, Arcadia.
Seed companies use Crispr to increase the productivity of
their breeding program
Massive investment in Crispr in China

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China probably leads US (and ROW) in

numbers of Crispr patents

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Will new technologies allow the development of

new crop varieties by small & medium companies?
Depends on how they are regulated:
If they are regulated like GMOs in Europe, large companies
will dominate buying small companies
If regulated like Canada (product based) then small
companies could prosper.
Small companies in China and India are likely to be able to use
these technologies anyway because regulators can not
differentiate plant make from these technologies from others.

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Middle income and poor countries should

exploit these new gene editing technologies not
ban them with precautionary regulations
Big companies want to look good by helping the poor. So make
use of this impulse to get these research tools the small and
medium companies that will serve small farms.
Partnerships between small local companies and US, European
or Chinese companies can be developed with financing and
connections from donors and local governments.
Governments of big countries can control multinationals through
anti-monopoly regulation, controls on seed prices and royalties
and bargaining on technology transfer when companies want to
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make investments or sell seed.

These technologies can help meet the SDGs 1

and 2 reducing poverty and hunger.

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Flood tolerant rice

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