By Inge Klöpfer, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung via Checkbiotech
Translated by Rupert Schutz, Checkbiotech

Renate Künast expels green biotechnology – the world’s largest research program for rape seed has no future in Germany.

In the field of green biotechnology, Germany’s Consumer Protection Minister, Renate Künast, has a formidable reputation - at least with German plant breeders. With her legislation regarding the reorganization of the Genetic Engineering Act, she is accused of driving an entire industry out of the country and essentially bringing German research to a standstill. This despite Germany being a world leader in this emerging business.

The way that Renate Künast uses the newly reorganized Genetic Engineering Act, which went into effect in February 2005, to block plant research and breeding can be seen particularly well with an example from research on rapeseed.

The project with the sonorous name “Napus 2000” is a world-renowned research program for rapeseed, where fatty acid patterns in the rapeseed are changed in such a way that they contain the same nutritional value as fish oil.

In addition, the scientists have succeeded in isolating the gene responsible for the production of the important fatty acid, Resveratrol, from red wine and to introduce it into the rapeseed. This project was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

“Napus 2000” held by the mid-sized-business entrepreneur Dietmar Brauer. Brauer’s company, “Norddeutsche Pflanzenzucht Hans Georg Lembke KG”, generates an annual revenue that ranges between 50 to 100 million euros, employs 143 people and co-ordinates this world’s largest rapeseed research program. Twenty partners from industry (including BASF and Unilever) and academia have been working on it for many years and have contributed about half of the 21 million euros used to finance the project. However, the genetically modified rapeseed which was developed, now has no chance in Germany.

Brauer said, “We currently do not breed transgenic varieties in Germany.” The reasons behind this are found in the reorganized Genetic Engineering Act. The genetically modified material developed by the researchers must now to be tested in the field.

“After the alterations in the Genetic Engineering Act, which came into effect in February, we won’t do any outdoor tests in Germany,” Brauer says.

First of all, it is a matter of liability. According to the new Act, should pollen of the genetically modified rapeseed be blown onto other fields and leave traces in the plants cultivated there, the breeder would be liable for the resulting damages to the neighbor’s crop, regardless of whether he really has caused them.

“Losses would still be manageable for us,” states Brauer, “But under such conditions there is no possibility to ever go forward with practical cultivation.”

In the end, much of the research and developments from Germany will go at a loss. Germany’s loss is Canada’s gain. Canada is the world’s leading rapeseed producer and has positioned itself to profit nicely from the research and development that Germany started.

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