Stéphane Lemarié

Fees or refuges: which is better for the sustainable management of insect resistance to transgenic Bt corn?

The evolution of resistance in insect pests will imperil the efficiency of transgenic insect-resistant crops. The currently advised strategy to delay resistance evolution is to plant non-toxic crops (refuges) in close proximity to plants engineered to express the toxic protein of the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). We seek answers to the question of how to induce growers to plant non-toxic crops. A first strategy, applied in the United States, is to require Bt growers to plant non-Bt refuges and control their compliance with requirements. We suggest that an alternative strategy is to make Bt seed more expensive by instituting a user fee, and we compare both strategies by integrating economic processes into a spatially explicit, population genetics model. Our results indicate that although both strategies may allow the sustainable management of the common pool of Bt-susceptibility alleles in pest populations, for the European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis) one of the most serious pests in the US corn belt, the fee strategy is less efficient than refuge requirements.

Strategies of European SMEs in Biotechnology: The Role of Size, Technology and Market

Both the technological and market focus of 228 European biotechnology SMEs are analysed in this paper. Data from the Genetic Engineering catalogue provide a complementary representation compared to the patent publications that are most commonly used. Results of the analysis produce a new view of the development of biotech SMEs. First, no pattern of specialisation by country is observed, even though three types of company with different technological focus can be distinguished in the sample. Second, it is argued that the rapid technological evolution in this domain can hardly be explained by a rapid evolution of the technological basis of the companies, and should consequently be explained primarily by the creation of new SMEs. Third, four different patterns of linkage between technology and market focus are observed, by means of co-word analysis.

Economic evaluation of genomic selection in small ruminants: a sheep meat breeding program

Recent genomic evaluation studies using real data and predicting genetic gain by modeling breeding programs have reported moderate expected benefits from the replacement of classic selection schemes by genomic selection (GS) in small ruminants. The objectives of this study were to compare the cost, monetary genetic gain and economic efficiency of classic selection and GS schemes in the meat sheep industry. Deterministic methods were used to model selection based on multi-trait indices from a sheep meat breeding program. Decisional variables related to male selection candidates and progeny testing were optimized to maximize the annual monetary genetic gain (AMGG), that is, a weighted sum of meat and maternal traits annual genetic gains. For GS, a reference population of 2000 individuals was assumed and genomic information was available for evaluation of male candidates only. In the classic selection scheme, males breeding values were estimated from own and offspring phenotypes. In GS, different scenarios were considered, differing by the information used to select males (genomic only, genomic+own performance, genomic+offspring phenotypes). The results showed that all GS scenarios were associated with higher total variable costs than classic selection (if the cost of genotyping was 123 euros/animal). In terms of AMGG and economic returns, GS scenarios were found to be superior to classic selection only if genomic information was combined with their own meat phenotypes (GS-Pheno) or with their progeny test information. The predicted economic efficiency, defined as returns (proportional to number of expressions of AMGG in the nucleus and commercial flocks) minus total variable costs, showed that the best GS scenario (GS-Pheno) was up to 15% more efficient than classic selection. For all selection scenarios, optimization increased the overall AMGG, returns and economic efficiency. As a conclusion, our study shows that some forms of GS strategies are more advantageous than classic selection, provided that GS is already initiated (i.e. the initial reference population is available). Optimizing decisional variables of the classic selection scheme could be of greater benefit than including genomic information in optimized designs.

Substitution and Complementarities in the Biotechnology and Pesticide Markets: A Theoretical Framework

The introduction of genetically modified (GM) seeds in the United States and elsewhere has been followed by quick adoption and diffusion (James, 2000). Initially, GM technologies have focused on agronomic traits such as herbicide tolerance or insect resistance. Farmers have adopted these technologies in order to improve their productivity and decrease costs. Several economic studies have estimated the impact of the adoption of GM seed, generally concluding that adoption leads to significant economic gains.

The technological trajectories of the agrochemical industry: Change and continuity

This article analyses recent technological change in the agrochemical industry. Using the concept of technological trajectories developed by evolutionary economists, it examines the coherence between the different characteristics of the research process and its environment in this sector. A distinction is made between the plant protection trajectory which has prevailed until now and the current emergence of a crop protection trajectory. For the time being it is only possible to consider two extreme forms of crop protection strategy, the first based on a ‘product package’, the second on ‘integrated pest management’ (IPM). The implications of these two forms of crop protection strategy, in terms of demand, appropriability and their cognitive frame, are discussed in detail. This leads to some sceptical conclusions concerning the incentives to, and the capabilities of, current pesticide leaders to develop innovations for IPM. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Plant biotechnology and agricultural supply industry restructuring

The strategic horizon of the agricultural supply industry (pesticides and seeds) is darkened by grave uncertainties. These are the result of the growing multiform resistance of society to the present or potential risks of genetically modified organisms to health and the environment. They are also the consequences of counter-strategies implemented by economic players who are close to final consumer markets. This type of situation generates an increasing distrust among financial community towards this activity its profitability is no longer attractive compared with the pharmaceutical industry, thus encouraging the massive ongoing restructuring process [1].