28 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM E veryone is very familiar with the form of public and political debate that is brought into focus time and time again when we have technical developments in agricultural products and seeds. It goes like this: the subjects are rapidly escalated into the political and regulatory arena, ostensibly based on the ‘precautionary principle’ and the debate is then typified by a battle between opposing opinions regarding safety, environmen- tal impact and regulation and the actors with the greatest polit- ical influence win the day. Political influence, of course, rarely sits with the private sector because our profit motive inherently creates a potential conflict of interest that takes significant polit- ical bravery to trust us to have any other motivations. WHAT IS FAIR? So, from the side of business and science-based innovation, our perception is that we frequently lose these arguments unfairly. Fairness depends upon your point of view, however, what is cer- tain is that innovations are not available to European agriculture that are being used in other regions of the world. We see ever increasing risks of this trend continuing towards the next gen- eration of innovations in plants using genome editing methods and whatever else might be invented after that. It should come as no surprise that I see that as an overall negative outcome for the European economy, citizens and most importantly the sustainable agricultural environment. These are additional con- siderations on top of economic goals in business. Today’s process as typified by the recent ECJ ruling in July 2018, leads to R&D investment being reduced as businesses see more risk rather than opportunity. Vast amounts of time, resources and human energy are consumed from all sides of the debate with outcomes of blocking and banning rather than joining forces to do the best that we can for sustainable agricul- ture. And so, I would like to take this opportunity to give you my personal reflections as outgoing ESA President on how we might find a new way to conduct ourselves as a sector that may break this cycle of negativity for the good of all. With debate focussed on the next innovation of genome editing we are at something of a pivotal moment where society can choose whether to adopt a technology or not. And of course, there are opposing views based on opinions and premises that are firmly entrenched. Is it possible to make progress in such a sensitive area of technology applications in living things that are personal to individuals as part of our food system? LEARN FROM HISTORY There are examples where strongly opposed groups of people have reached sometimes surprising consensus. I grew up in the 1970s in the UK which was a time when we frequently experi- enced terrorist bomb threats and tragedies coming from the conflicts in Northern Ireland. It was part of life, an insolvable What are we Prepared to Risk? CHANGING OUR WAY OF COMMUNICATING IN THE SEED SECTOR. BY: NIGEL MOORE Nigel Moore