Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.4
Ownership of
drought and stress-tolerance
genetics globally (N = 2,769
patent families)
soybean and maize cultivars patented only in the US and the portfolios of the two
top assignees, Du Pont-Pioneer and Monsanto, account for a large portion of these.
3.3 Activity in Late-Stage Development: Field Trial Trends
It is required by virtually all governments to obtain permission to conduct open field
trials of transgenic crops not yet approved for commercial cultivation. In the R&D
process, open field trials are useful for testing varieties under more realistic field
conditions after they have passed through early development stages in the labora-
tory and greenhouse. As such, open field trials are a good indicator of activity at the
advanced development stage of R&D. Fortunately, most governments make basic
information on such field trials available to the public.
The greatest advantage of field trial data is the specificity of the information (in
most cases), identification of the crop, the trait, and the organization doing the trial.
The most obvious disadvantage of field trial data is that it covers only varieties
that are under development using a transgenic approach. Varieties developed by the
breeding approach are not required to be registered in the same manner, and there-
fore are not systematically available.
Field trial data were obtained from online postings by relevant government au-
thorities in the United States (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/status/BRS_public_
data_file.xls), Europe (http://gmoinfo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/gmp_browse.aspx), Canada
(http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/plaveg/bio/pbopnte.shtml), Australia (http://
www.ogtr.gov.au/internet/ogtr/publishing.nsf/Content/ir-1), Japan (http://www.bch.
biodic.go.jp/english/lmo.html), and India (http://igmoris.nic.in/field_trials.asp).
Field trial data were located for Mexico (Juarez and Branson
2011
), but none per-
tained to drought or stress tolerance. Secondary reports on a handful of field trials
