Agrochemical conference team back from the U.S

The past few weeks have been pretty busy for the Informa agrochemical conference team. Having just returned from Washington D.C, US where we launched the Regulation of Crop Protection Chemicals in the US we are now turning our attention to the annual “Regulation of Agrochemicals in Europe” conference that is taking place in Brussels 13- 14 May (www.informa-ls.com/agrochemicals).

The Washington meeting was run in partnership with CropLife America and was an information packed (and rather hectic) 2 days. The agenda was made up of over 40 speakers (needing good time management skills from the chairs), including 8 speakers from the EPA and examining some of the hottest issues taking place the other side of the Atlantic.

More on Informa Life Sciences event 15th Annual Registration of Agrochemicals in Europe; Crowne Plaza Brussels City Centre, Brussels, Belgium Tel: +44(0)20 7017 7481 registrations@informa-ls.com www.informa-ls.com/agrochemicals

The event covered a diverse range of topics including The Endangered Species Act, Ecological Risk Assessments, Inerts, Joint Reviews, Endocrine Screening and MRLs (in true regulatory style some topics proved to be more controversial than others which ensured that there was lots of discussion).

Top of most peoples lists of concerns at the moment seemed to be the Endangered Species Act, Joint Reviews and MRLs. Europe too had a mention with particular attention being paid to how changes in the EU system (especially relating to MRLs) are set to impact the rest of the world.

Seeing how the US industry clearly had some thoughts/opinions on the EU sytem I was wondering what would happen if I posed the same question to an EU audience about the US system. If you currently have products on the US market what are your biggest concerns/challenges with some of the changes being introduced or discussed within the EPA- leave a comment in order that we can see if there are any common themes.

Anyone that wants more information on the US event some of the topics discussed at the event are currently being written up as a series of articles that are/will be appearing in Agrow.

It's GM Time.

The US is heading into recession, the UK looks set to follow, and the prognosis for the rest of the global economy isn't looking too rosy. It's going to be a tough time for business over the coming year.

Except if you're in the crop protection business.

Food prices have soared over the last couple of years. According to Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, in a speech last week "Since 2005, the price of staples has jumped 80 percent." Pressures such as demographics (i.e., more mouths to feed), unpredictable weather patterns, the changing dietary habits of more-affluent consumers in Asia, and the effects of biofuels have pushed up food prices.

"Time-lapse video shows flood tolerance in rice" View the video (0:39)Visit the website A time-lapse video commisioned by DFID on the effect of the Sub1 rice gene, taken between 14 June to 16 October 2007 in an IRRI plot. Featured in our agbiotech news Video: IRRI

In response, some governments are trying to reduce food exports. For example, the government in Argentina has hiked export taxes on soybeans and the Indian government has banned the export of nonbasmati rice. These decisions can only exacerbate the problem of food shortages for the rest of the world.

I'm not an economist, but there two obvious ways to drive down prices: increase supply or reduce demand. Reducing demand across the globe is not easy option; the trend for consumers in emerging economies is to eat more meat. A diet high in meat requires more land to sustain it than that for a vegetarian diet. The poorest people are already eating the cheapest foods and have few alternatives. The problems of food shortages are coming to a head. The global population is growing, but food yields are flat. Already, there are fears of food riots as the price of rice around the world increases.

More reasonable is to increase food supply. As the amount of arable land in the world is limited, it is vital to increase the crop yields that the land has to offer. Widespread use of pesticides is one way of increasing yields, which has to be good for the conventional pesticide companies, but there are limits to what can be done with conventional technology.

The outlook for GM firms is better. GM technology is the one development that has the capability of delivering more food that a hungry world needs. So far, GM crops have been grown predominantly in North America while most of the rest of the world argues about whether they're a good thing. Some countries are sending out mixed messages. China, for example, has recently announced an increase in funding for research into GM crops, but has still approved very few GM crops for large-scale growing.

If governments are prepared to bite the bullet and take tough political decisions required to approve GM crops (based on stringent regulatory criteria), food yields would increase in a relatively short period of time. Governments will take the view that it's better to have a few well-fed, wealthy westerners from Greenpeace turning up waving a few anti-GM placards than watch its own population starve.

It's time to overcome irrational fears of GM organisms based on ignorance. It's time for governments to embrace the best technology that can help solve a global food crisis. It's GM time.