Bayer has hinted that growing acceptance of gene-edited crops in Europe could eventually pave the way for broader acceptance of agricultural biotechnology, including some genetically modified (GM) traits.
Speaking during a webinar to discuss a new report on agricultural competitiveness, Bayer’s head of public affairs, Matthias Berninger, suggested that successful deployment of New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) could help shift attitudes towards biotechnology after decades of political and public resistance.
Asked whether increasing regulatory acceptance of gene editing both in the UK and EU could act as a gateway to wider acceptance of agricultural biotechnology in Europe, Berninger said: “I think we need to prove the difference we can make with the new breeding technologies. As we demonstrate the benefits of new breeding technologies, I think the conversation on biotechnology will soften.”
Berninger compared Europe’s recent political agreement on NGTs to the end of a long-running conflict.
“I liken the NGT approval to the Westphalian peace, if you will. After 30 years of conflicts on biotechnology, Brussels found a compromise, and in the long run, I think that Westphalian peace will loosen the access barriers to some of the GMOs as well.”
He also pointed to what he described as a contradiction in EU policy.
“One reality in Europe is that we are de facto banning the use of GMOs in Europe, but we are importing GMO feeds because in the feed space GMOs are pretty much standard in the European Union. That again doesn’t make much sense.”
Europe losing ground to global competitors
The webinar was organised to discuss a new Bayer-commissioned report combining economic analysis from Oxford Economics, consumer polling and interviews with farmers across eight European markets.
The report argues that the EU and UK risk falling further behind the US, Brazil, Canada and China unless farmers gain faster access to new technologies.
According to the research, crop agriculture contributes €246bn to EU GDP and €5.7bn to UK GDP. However, between 2011 and 2023 crop production grew by just 0.1% annually in the EU and remained flat in the UK, compared with 1% in the US and 3.3% in Brazil.
Bayer argues that climate-related losses, rising input costs and slow adoption of innovation are undermining Europe’s competitiveness.
The company is calling for a more predictable and proportionate regulatory framework to accelerate the approval of technologies including genome editing, advanced seed traits, crop protection products, artificial intelligence and precision agriculture.
Bayer: Europe’s crop protection pipeline is stuck
Bayer executives repeatedly returned to what they see as another pressing issue: the slow approval of new crop protection products.
Berninger argued that Europe’s regulatory system has become bogged down by lengthy re-authorisation procedures.
“The problem we have at the moment is that the system is clogged with reapproval processes that are cumbersome and bureaucratic, and while that happens, new innovative solutions are taking much longer in Europe to be approved than in any other part of the world.”
According to Berninger, this creates: “the absurd situation that new innovative solutions cannot compete with the older crop protection solutions.”
Frank Terhorst, Bayer’s head of strategy & sustainability for crop science, said the industry’s innovation pipeline is struggling to replace products being removed from the market.
“In the last seven years alone, 92 products or active substances went off the market, and at the same time we only had one new synthetic crop protection product registered.”
He added that farmers are already experiencing the consequences.
“If you talk to farmers today in oilseed rape, in weeds, but also for sure in horticulture, they have significant gaps in their protection strategy.”
Bayer pushes for a “fast lane” for innovation
A central theme of the webinar was Bayer’s call for accelerated approval pathways for innovative agricultural technologies.
Berninger argued that Europe should create a dedicated fast-track process for new products.
“It would be very different if we created the space and potentially even a fast lane for innovative products.”
Later, he expanded on the idea. “A fast lane for the innovative crop protection solutions in our pipeline is probably the other thing that will really help to provide speedy access to new crop protection solutions, biological and chemical in nature.”
Expressing frustration with the current system, he said: “What drives me sometimes nuts is that we are spending our time reapproving old chemicals that are even no longer produced in Europe, and at the same time, the innovation we develop in Europe for Europe has to stand at the back of the line and wait for the process to basically inch its way forward.”
He pointed to differences between the UK and EU regulatory systems.
“Iblon, which is one of our new fungicides, for example, has been approved in the UK, while it’s pretty much stuck in the European approval process as we speak.”
Has the UK gained an advantage on gene editing?
Despite praising the UK’s faster approach in some areas of crop protection regulation, Bayer struck a more measured tone when asked whether England’s gene-editing framework provides a competitive advantage over the EU.
Berninger suggested recent reforms on both sides of the Channel have significantly narrowed the gap.
“There are slight differences between the English regulation and the EU regulation, but both allow us at Bayer to really look at gene editing as a global breeding platform.”
Is Europe’s GMO resistance beginning to soften?
GM crops, meanwhile, have represented one of the most divisive issues in European agriculture, with public opposition in the late 1990s and early 2000s helping to shape some of the world’s strictest biotechnology regulations.
While Bayer’s remarks hint at a future thaw in Europe’s GMO debate, Jeremy Leonard, managing director at Oxford Economics, suggested there may also be a strong economic case for such a shift. He pointed to the surge in productivity seen in countries that adopted GM crops from the mid-1990s onwards. “There is extremely solid economic evidence on this that these will drive productivity,” he said.
“GMO crops have been used and tested for 30 years. I’m not a farmer, but certainly from an economic perspective, there is likely to be a very large bang for the buck in terms of being able to accelerate some of these things.”
