Team:Marburg/Human Practices/Integrated/DBV

Deutscher Bauernverband (DBV)

Overview

For our project, we wanted to interview several NGOs, including the Deutscher Bauernverband/The German Farmers' Association (DBV). The positions on GMOs and on our project among agricultural scientists and farmers are a fundamental point for our HP project. The interview with the DBV as well as the interviews with local farmers, provided us with deep insights from an agricultural perspective regarding the cultivation of GMOs and the desired characteristics of this process. As the DBV is the organisation that represents 90% of the 300,000 German farmers, the interview was able to provide an insight into the majority of the different interests within this very heterogeneous group. It also illuminated us on the complex distribution of knowledge about GMOs within the community of German farmers.

In our interview with Dr. Dominik Modrzejewski, a representative of the DBV from the State Farmers' Association in Baden-Württemberg, our intention was to shed light on the side of agriculture on our project and ask whether certain requirements are placed on the breeding of crops.
Dr. Modrzejewski is a consultant for crop production and studied agricultural sciences at the University of Hohenheim. He earned his doctorate at the “Bundesforschungsinstitut für Kulturpflanzen” (Federal Research Institute for Cultivated Plants) on the subject of new plant breeding techniques and their risks.
In this regard, we were able to use Dr. Modrzejewski's expertise to discuss the necessities and risks of new plant breeding techniques versus other necessary actions. He introduced us to CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and other modern methods as a useful addition for breeders and also described the importance the sustainable use of arable land. This is relevant as farmers make a significant contribution to active climate protection, in example, through the cultivation of bioenergy.

New breeding techniques can simplify the process to increase stress tolerance against abiotic factors, like drought or salt, within plants. The DBV has therefore repeatedly called upon the political parties to reform the Genetic Engineering Act at both German and European level. In the press release on the ECJ (European Court of Justice) ruling of July 2018, the DBV argues that genetic engineering law must be adapted to the current state of scientific knowledge in a timely manner in order to be open to new developments. In the ECJ ruling, all modifications of crops using modern breeding methods, including point mutations with CRISPR/Cas, were classified as GMOs. The plants must be labelled accordingly and are affected by the Release Directive, while older methods such as mutations by radiation or by mutagenic reagents are not covered by this law.

We would very much like to see that these point mutations by new breeding techniques do not fall under genetic engineering law, but are excluded from the strict regulations as a genetically modified organism. New plant breeding techniques can reduce the use of pesticides and thus make a contribution to sustainable agriculture. - Dr. Dominik Modrzejewski

There is not yet a clear position within the DBV on exactly what the guidelines should look like, for example in regard to cisgenes. We were very surprised to see that the majority within the organisation are quite positive about relaxing the legal regulations regarding GMOs. In the case of transgenics, a border has been drawn between cisgenic and transgenic plants in the DBV. Even though the use of cisgenes is discussed internally, the DBV officially does not advocate transgenes.
The regulation of GMOs drags through national and international institutions. One reason for the strict requirements regarding GMOs could be low acceptance rates among many potential consumers and a lack of understanding on the matter of genetic engineering. In the interview, Dr. Modrzejewski explained that the type of questioning often makes a difference. Here he gave the example that hardly anyone would willingly consume radioactively irradiated plants, however, these do not have to be labeled, whereby the acceptance in the public perception might be a little higher. This does not seem to be entirely comprehensible, but this is the situation due to the legal situation.
For most farmers other aspects, like yield stability or improvement of product quality are more important regardless of the method they are archived. This also speaks for the positive attitude towards modern breeding methods among farmers. These important production factors should be given special consideration in the commercial use of synthetic plant biology.

Two of our team members in the Interview

In the long term, our cell-free systems from chloroplasts could therefore be used to improve precisely these factors. In terms of yield stability alone, there are many other aspects to consider. For example, one field alone might have different light or soil conditions, which is why uniform seeding is not always ideal. An example for these soil conditions are sandbanks in a field, which could cause difficulties in the seeding process.
Another important aspect for farmers is the safety within patented seeds. Here we have to differentiate between patents on the technology and patents on the plants that are bred with this technology. Since there are not always clear regulations regarding patents on the last aspect, farmers could become dependent on one seed company which owns patents on the demanded seeds. Therefore, according to Dr. Modrzejewski, there should be no patents on individual gene regions or on individual plants.
In addition to this point, he also made it clear to which extent agriculture as a whole is blocked by different regulations. For instance, it can difficult for start-ups, if the end products cannot be used or marketed due to the legal situation, as testing of the produced plants in field trials is not possible in Germany. Overall, an important addition by synthetic biology for agriculture is still the development of resistances in plants. This includes herbicide, insect or fungal resistance, as well as stress resistance to salt or drought.

All in all, the interview gave us a pretty good overview of the legal regulations from the farmers' point of view. Seeing the prioritizations of the DBV not only helped us develop long-term plans for our cell-free systems, but instead enabled us to determine that our project is determined to help the world. In addition, DBV offers some very interesting topics on the future of agriculture, so the research for the interview was incredibly helpful in helping us understand the scope of our project and the complexity in agriculture.

Insights

The insights into the position of the DBV have not only shown us that there are internalised fears against GMOs within the society and even among farmers. But we strongly believe that the constant handling of the topic can also lead to a more nuanced view of GMOs. It also has to be taken into consideration that neutral information on GMOs is hard to find, due to the huge number of anti-GMO activists. The interviews with Dr. Dominik Modrzejewski and with the different farmers has inspired us to collect all important information on different aspects of GMOs, e.g. on the history of GMOs, the legal situation in Germany, or methods to prevent unintended spreading of the plants in our "GVO Infolet". With regard to the resistances mentioned in the interview, which are of great use for farmers in the cultivation of crops, it has already been shown several times that these can be achieved through changes in the chloroplast. For example, heat resistance can be achieved by modifying proteins in the chloroplast [1]. Our cell-free systems from chloroplasts can also help to prototype these resistances, although this would already be an iGEM project on its own. Despite this, the interview was very informative and helped us to further develop the vision of our project.

Check out the transcript of our interview with the DBV!

Sources

  1. Zeng, C., Jia, T., Gu, T., Su, J., & Hu, X. (2021). Progress in Research on the Mechanisms Underlying Chloroplast-Involved Heat Tolerance in Plants. In Genes (Vol. 12, Issue 9, p. 1343). MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes12091343