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Citizen StakeholdersConservationLegislation & RegulationSustainability

The principles driving gene drives for conservation

Sarah Hartley, Riley Taitingfong, Pedro Fidelman
Publication date: 01/09/2022
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Scientists are exploring potential gene drive applications for managing invasive species and building resilience in keystone species threatened by climate change. The possibility to use gene drive for these conservation purposes has triggered significant interest in how to govern its development and eventual applications. We conducted qualitative documentary analysis to examine the range and substance of principles emerging in the governance of conservation gene drive. Such analysis aimed to better understand the aspirations guiding these applications and how scientists and other experts imagine their responsibility in this field. We found a collection of recommendations and prescriptions that could be organised into a set of seven emerging principles intended to shape the governance of gene drive in conservation: broad and empowered engagement; public acceptance; decision-making informed by broad ranging considerations, state and international collaboration; ethical frameworks; diverse expertise; and responsible self-regulation by developers. We lay bare these emergent principles, analyzing the way in which they are valued, prioritized, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingScience & TechnologySustainability

Time for the end of GM/GE herbicide tolerant crops?

GeneWatch UK
Publication date: 01/08/2022
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The aim of this report is to look at the economic, environmental and social impacts of growing RoundUp Ready (RR) crops and newer HT crops. This report reviews more than 25 years of experience with this technology. We conclude that the cultivation of GM HT crops may be regarded as a temporary aberration, rather than the revolution originally proclaimed by the proponents of these crops. The growing failure of RoundUp Ready crops, due to the spread of glyphosate resistant (GR) weeds, provides an opportunity to phase out the use of RR crops and adopt new methods and technologies. The priority should be to reduce and replace the use of herbicides: not to replace RR crops with other herbicide-tolerant crops, whether or not these are GM crops or produced by different methods.

Resource type: article: Web Page
Citizen StakeholdersLegislation & RegulationPlant & Animal BreedingSustainability

Imagined futures for livestock gene editing: Public engagement in the Netherlands

Senna Middelveld, Phil Macnaghten, Franck Meijboom
Publication date: 01/08/2022
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While gene editing is commonly represented as offering unbounded possibilities and societal benefit, it remains unclear how to characterise public views and the process through which responses are developed. Rather than simply being about individual attitudes, beliefs or preferences, we explicate an interpretative approach that seeks to understand how people make sense of the technology in the form of shared cultural idioms and stories. Based on five anticipatory focus group discussions with Dutch publics, we found the prevalence of five narratives shaping public talk, namely, technological fix, the market rules, in pursuit of perfection, finding the golden mean and governance through care. We explore the implications of these findings for governance and reflect on the virtues of sophrosyne and phronesis as offering ways to reconfigure the practice and politics of gene editing.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingFood systemsScience & TechnologySustainability

Digital technology and agroecology: opportunities to explore, challenges to overcome

Véronique Bellon-Maurel, Pascal Bonnet, Isabelle Piot-Lepetit, Ludovic Brossard, Pierre Labarthe, Pierre Maurel, Jean-Yves Courtonne.
Publication date: 01/06/2022
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This chapter will focus on the opportunities and challenges presented by digital technology for agroecology in its broadest sense, i.e. sustainable food systems.

Resource type: article: Web Page
Citizen StakeholdersLegislation & RegulationScience & TechnologySustainability

The complexity of the gene and the precision of CRISPR: What is the gene that is being edited?

Esha Shah, David Ludwig, Phil Macnaghten
Publication date: 26/10/2021
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This article argues that the polarization around the governance of gene editing partly reflects a failure of public engagement with the current state of research in genomics and postgenomics. CRISPR-based gene-editing technology has become embedded in a narrow narrative about the ease and precision of the technique that presents the gene as a stable object under technological control. This narrative fails to position the “ease of CRISPR-based editing” into the wider context of the “complexity of the gene.” While this strategic narrowness of CRISPR narratives aims to create public support for gene-editing technologies, we argue that it stands in the way of socially desirable anticipatory governance and open public dialogue about societal promises and the unintended consequences of gene editing. In addressing the polarization surrounding CRISPR-based editing technology, the article emphasizes the need for engagement with the complex state of postgenomic science that avoids strategic simplifications of the scientific literature in promoting or opposing the commercial use of the gene-editing technology.

Resource type: article: Web Page
Citizen StakeholdersLegislation & RegulationPlant & Animal BreedingSustainability

How to Do What Is Right, Not What Is Easy: Requirements for Assessment of Genome-Edited and Genetically Modified Organisms under Ethical Guidelines

T. Antonsen, T. Dassler
Publication date: 24/06/2021
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An ethical assessment is a complex, dynamic and comprehensive process that requires both ethical expertise and practical knowledge. An ethical assessment of a genetically modified organism (GMO, including genome edited organisms) must follow accepted and transparent methods and be based in relevant considerations. In addition, the Ethical guidelines must include a broad and adequate range of values, so that no groups, stakeholders, agents or areas are left out.

We recommend that ethical assessments of GMOs (including genome-edited organisms) are performed by professionals with competence and practical knowledge of ethical judgements, and that users, non-users, stakeholders and interest groups are actively involved. In addition, we recommend that the Ethical guidelines include a wide range of ethical values.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingFood systemsSustainability

Higher yields and more biodiversity on smaller farms

Vincent Ricciardi, Zia Mehrabi, Hannah Wittman, Dana James, Navin Ramankutty
Publication date: 25/03/2021
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Small farms constitute most of the world’s farms and are a central focus of sustainable agricultural development. However, the relationship between farm size and production, profitability, biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions remains contested. Here, we synthesize current knowledge through an evidence review and meta-analysis and show that smaller farms, on average, have higher yields and harbour greater crop and non-crop biodiversity at the farm and landscape scales than do larger farms. We find little conclusive evidence for differences in resource-use efficiency, greenhouse gas emission intensity and profits. Our findings highlight the importance of farm size in mediating some environmental and social outcomes relevant to sustainable development. We identify a series of research priorities to inform land- and market-based policies that affect smallholders globally.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingLegislation & RegulationScience & TechnologySustainability

Broadening the GMO risk assessment in the EU for genome editing technologies in agriculture

Katharina Kawall, Janet Cotter, Christoph Then
Publication date: 11/08/2020
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Here, we describe the range of specific unintended effects associated with genome editing. We examine the considerable possibilities to change the genome of plants and animals with SDN-1 and SDN-2 genome editing (i.e. without the insertion of genes conferring the novel trait) and show that genome editing techniques are able to produce a broad spectrum of novel traits that, thus far, were not possible to be obtained using conventional breeding techniques. We consider that the current EU risk assessment guidance for GMOs requires revision and broadening to capture all potential genomic irregularities arising from genome editing and suggest additional tools to assist the risk assessment of genome-edited plants and animals for the environment and food/animal feed in the EU.

Resource type: article: Web Page
Science & TechnologySustainability

Precision Technologies for Agriculture: Digital Farming, Gene-Edited Crops, and the Politics of Sustainability

Jennifer Clapp, Sarah-Louise Ruder
Publication date: 01/08/2020
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This article analyzes the rise of precision technologies for agriculture—specifically digital farming and plant genome editing—and their implications for the politics of environmental sustainability in the agrifood sector. We map out opposing views in the emerging debate over the environmental aspects of these technologies: while proponents see them as vital tools for environmental sustainability, critics view them as antithetical to their own agroecological vision of sustainable agriculture. We argue that key insights from the broader literature on the social effects of technological change—in particular, technological lock-in, the double-edged nature of technology, and uneven power relations—help to explain the political dynamics of this debate. Our analysis highlights the divergent perspectives regarding how these technologies interact with environmental problems, as well as the risks and opportunities they present. Yet, as we argue in the article, developments so far suggest that these dynamics are not always straightforward in practice.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingFood systemsSustainability

Farm to Fork Strategy

European Commission
Publication date: 01/05/2020
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The Farm to Fork Strategy is a new comprehensive approach to how Europeans value food sustainability. It is
an opportunity to improve lifestyles, health, and the environment. The creation of a favourable food environment
that makes it easier to choose healthy and sustainable diets will benefit consumers’ health and quality of life,
and reduce health-related costs for society.

Resource type: article: Web Page