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The European Union and United Kingdom are in the process of establishing new regulation regarding the use of new genomic techniques in crop and animal breeding. As part of this process, consultations have been launched to understand the views of stakeholders towards the use of new genomic techniques in plant and animal breeding. The responsible research and innovation framework emphasises the importance of dialogue between technology developers and stakeholders, including the public, but what are the opinions of stakeholders towards the regulation of NGTs in Europe and do they view these consultations as opportunities to engage with technology governance? We conducted semi-structured interviews with experts from a range of agri-food stakeholder groups in the European Union and United Kingdom to understand current attitudes towards new biotechnology regulation, how they viewed the process of consultation in both places and what influence they felt they had in shaping regulations. We found that the discussion is similar in both EU and UK, with predictable and fixed opinions determined by attitudes towards the perceived risks associated with direct mutagenesis. Both UK and EU consultations were considered to have the same weaknesses and stakeholders discussed a desire for more dialogic forms of engagement. We highlight several options for new forms of involvement in biotechnology regulation by exploring relevant responsible research and innovation literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop breeding is one of the main tools which can assist in future‐proofing food systems for more sustainable outcomes. In order to ensure priorities are aligned with the needs and wants of food system actors, it is essential to engage with key stakeholders to understand preferences on plant breeding solutions. This study presents results from a series of online focus groups conducted with agricultural production related stakeholders (i.e. farmers and farmer representatives, policymakers and NGOs) regarding the potential for crop improvement to future‐proof European food systems. Stakeholders shared concern around climate change and environmental impacts (particularly drought and heat stress), and general agreement about the need to develop resilient crops which combine multiple positive attributes, while reducing trade‐offs and negative externalities. Stakeholders also prioritized plant breeding solutions for areas where they felt they had little agency, and existing alternative solutions, such as improving input use efficiency, or altering diets to be considered where these are available. This highlights the need for the crop breeding community to focus its attentions on the 'most hard to fix' issues, where in‐field measures are currently not offering viable solutions, to maximize acceptance and adoption by agricultural production stakeholders. It also highlights that consideration of trade‐offs, within plant and within a broader agri‐food context, must be integrated into crop breeding research and development, with trade‐off analysis an explicit component of breeding research. Understanding broader agri‐food system knock‐on effects of plant innovation is a non‐trivial challenge requiring interdisciplinary research and close partnerships with food system stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global demand for providing nutritious, sustainable, and safe diets for a 10 billion population by 2050 while preserving affordability, reducing environmental impacts, and adapting to climate change will require accelerating the transition to sustainable agri‐food systems. A plausible way to help tackle these challenges is by developing new plant varieties that have improved crop yield, plant nutritional quality, and sustainability (or resilience) traits. However, stakeholders, consumers, and citizens' concerns and appreciation of future‐proofing crops and the acceptability of new plant breeding strategies are not well‐established. These groups are actors in the agri‐food systems, and their views, values, needs, and expectations are crucial in helping to co‐design fair, ethical, acceptable, sustainable, and socially desirable policies on new plant breeding techniques (NPBTs) and the transition to sustainable agri‐food systems. In this study, we engaged with consumer experts and societal stakeholders to consider their perceptions, expectations, and acceptability of improving crops and NPBTs for future‐proofing the agri‐food systems. Our analysis points to a need for governments to take a proactive role in regulating NPBTs, ensure openness and transparency in breeding new crop varieties, and inform consumers about the effects of these breeding programmes and the risks and benefits of the new crop varieties developed. Consumer experts and societal stakeholders considered these strategies necessary to instil confidence in society about NPBTs and accelerate the transition to sustainable agri‐food systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant molecular farming (PMF) with tobacco could provide a sustainable and cheap platform for the production of high-value proteins for medical use. It could also offer European tobacco farmers an alternative, healthful end use for their crop. New plant breeding techniques (NPBTs) offer a means of quickly and precisely optimizing molecular farming platforms for this purpose. However, there has been little empirical research focussing on the barriers and facilitators of these technologies in the agricultural sphere. Here, we explore key stakeholder perceptions toward this combination of technologies, exploring their understanding of risk and opportunity. We interviewed N = 24 key stakeholders – tobacco farmers, agronomists, policymakers, and researchers – in three tobacco-growing areas of Spain and Italy. Our findings demonstrate these stakeholders have a favorable attitude toward PMF with tobacco due to its beneficial medical purpose and the opportunity it provides farmers to continue growing tobacco in a declining European market. Tobacco producers also reported favorable views toward NPBTs, though for some this was contingent on their use for non-food crops like tobacco. Most stakeholders' concerns are economic in nature, such as potential profitability and demands for new agronomic practices or infrastructure. Tobacco producer associations were thought to be important facilitators for future PMF scale-up. The attitude toward these technologies by smoking tobacco companies is, however, unknown and constitutes a potential risk to the development of PMF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant molecular farming (PMF) is a convenient and cost-effective way to produce high-value recombinant proteins that can be used in the production of a range of health products, from pharmaceutical therapeutics to cosmetic products. New plant breeding techniques (NPBTs) provide a means to enhance PMF systems more quickly and with greater precision than ever before. However, the feasibility, regulatory standing and social acceptability of both PMF and NPBTs are in question. This paper explores the perceptions of key stakeholders on two European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 programmes–Pharma-Factory and Newcotiana–towards the barriers and facilitators of PMF and NPBTs in Europe. One-on-one qualitative interviews were undertaken with N = 20 individuals involved in one or both of the two projects at 16 institutions in seven countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Spain and the UK). The findings indicate that the current EU regulatory environment and the perception of the public towards biotechnology are seen as the main barriers to scaling-up PMF and NPBTs. Competition from existing systems and the lack of plant-specific regulations likewise present challenges for PMF developing beyond its current niche. However, respondents felt that the communication of the benefits and purpose of NPBT PMF could provide a platform for improving the social acceptance of genetic modification. The importance of the media in this process was highlighted. This article also uses the multi-level perspective to explore the ways in which NPBTs are being legitimated by interested parties and the systemic factors that have shaped and are continuing to shape the development of PMF in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation has been promoted to help meet the various challenges faced by the UK fresh produce sector. However, what barriers hinder the development and spread of new ideas in the sector have not been investigated. This article explores the social and economic constraints to innovation by combining the agricultural innovation systems (AIS) conceptual framework with a functional-structural analysis. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 32 key informants, including growers, agronomists, researchers and representatives from major retailers. The findings show that, whilst the UK fresh produce sector is highly innovative, a number of systemic problems slow or prevent the acquisition and utilisation of knowledge. The privatisation of public extension services has led to a degree of horizontal and vertical fragmentation, with increasingly 'closed' groups and lack of nationwide research coordination or guiding visions for the sector. Variation in business size and crop type make coordination or coherent visions challenging to establish, presenting problems for intermediary organisations in matching the supply and demand of agricultural knowledge. At the same time, a stark power asymmetry exists between suppliers and retail customers, whose policies have led to a "defensive" innovation culture and lack of trust – producer organisations represent a response to this asymmetry, as well as increasingly important factor in the (now globalised) development and diffusion of agricultural innovations. Systemic instruments to facilitate better coordination and communication are proposed, such as innovation platforms to bring together otherwise closed groups around common problems and the use of road-mapping to provide a guiding vision for the future of the sector. Retail-led grower groups also provide a means to improve trust between suppliers and customers in the sector and promote new technological trajectories. • Vertical and horizontal fragmentation caused by loss of public extension services. • Power and information asymmetry between retail suppliers and customers • Producer organisations increasingly important for innovation processes • Globalisation of agricultural knowledge development and diffusion [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in applications and benefits that Molecular Pharming might offer to Low and Middle Income Countries has always been a potent driver for the research discipline, and a major reason why many scientists entered the field. Although enthusiasm remains high, the reality is that such a game-changing innovation would always take longer than traditional uptake of new technology in developed countries, and be complicated by external factors beyond technical feasibility. Excitingly, signs of increasing interest by LMICS in Molecular Pharming are now emerging. Here, three case studies from Thailand, South Africa and Brazil are used to identify some of the key issues when a new investment into Molecular Pharming manufacturing capacity is under consideration. At present, academic research is not necessarily addressing these issues. Only by understanding the concerns, can members of the academic community contribute to helping the development of Molecular Pharming for LMICs by focusing their research efforts appropriately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]