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Biography |
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Professor. em. University of Bern. Born: 6 December 1940 in Bern, Thesis: Vegetation and Glacier history, summa cum laude in 1972 Bern University. Assisting to Swiss Atlas of Plant Distribution, first Swiss research department on Lichenology (chemosystematics and bio-monitoring air pollution). Teaching in plant biodiversity and vegetation ecology, director of the Bern Botanic Garden 1996-2006 and Prof. h.c. 2000. Sabbatical stays: Bergen, Norway, Duke University in North Carolina, University of the West Indies in Jamaica, and Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. Emeritus 2006, guest prof. Delft University of Technology, Sabanci University in Istanbul and Tehran 2017. Moderating ‘Berne Debates’, early blog on plant biotechnology, presently—ASK-FORCE at PRRI (Public Research and Regulation Initiative) FORUM at European Federation of Biotechnology, KLAUSBLOG at Black Sea Biotechnology Association and since 2017 frequent contributions for literature blog of Klaus Jany. Numerous committees: Chair European expert committee on plant conservation, Council of Europe, founding member Planta Europa, Swiss Biosafety Committee: Biodiversity Section of EFB. Several Swiss and European research projects on gene flow, plant conservation, lichen chemosystematics and monitoring air pollution. Publications on biogeography, vegetation history, vegetation ecology, plant systematics (monography on Bromus), gene flow of crops and their wild relatives and agricultural biodiversity. He also has a special interest in Pythagorean Harmonics science and holistic questions in evolution. For more details see http://www.ask-force.org/web/Curriculum/Links2.pdf
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Abstract |
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Biodiversity, Biotechnology and Organic Farming: |
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If we want to escape years long fruitless debates on biotechnology and biodiversity, we have to do more than just to deplore the debate full of artificial (or imagined) contrasts, here two main arguments:
First: We need to see behind the curtain and focus on the main driver elements behind the debate. The industry, together with important farmer organizations, wants to see better results of the new breeds in the field. The opposition deplores to lose the debate with the more targeted methods of Gene Editing (they still consider full of risks but are unable to present facts) and some major players risk major loss of income, since a main driver behind their campaigns is diffuse fear, built on questionable interpretations of substantial equivalence and sustainability and full of other false arguments.
Second: Surprisingly, molecular science and unbiased views on agricultural history should be able to ease down the contrasts in this debate here two of many arguments: The process of gene transfer is identical, whether done in natural mutation or modern biotechnology, a view supported in the past many times by Nobel Prize Winner Werner Arber, cited and summarized with details of the regulatory history in the Genomic Misconception, a review published 2014 by the speaker.
And it is fact (after Wood and also Lenne) that our main world crops (Rice, Wheat and Sorghum) have been chosen by our ancestors because they already lived in large monodominant stands, an important precondition of efficient food production. As a consequence, we need proposals to merge organic farming with its good sides in biodiversity management, but with a too strict focus on anti-biotechnology and hostility towards industrial farming with its uncritical perspective on production alone. Consequently, it is better to think the unthinkable such as Organo-Transgenics: Indeed, organic farming and biotech farming could actually go together under well-defined circumstances - across ideological and commercial barriers.
Conclusion: The regulatory views should in consequence also not be black and white for part or the whole modern and traditional breeding: A dynamically scalable regulatory modus should be more realistic and more acceptable to friends and foes, see Jeffrey Wolt and Nancy Podevin.
Four recent papers demonstrate with more detailed conclusions and comments about the Regulation of GM crops within Europe: Davison, Eriksson, Ricroch and Tagliabue, all coauthored by the speaker.
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