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The contraction of agbiotech product quality innovation

Nature Biotechnology volume 27, pages 702–704 (2009)Cite this article

To the Editor:

Agbiotech innovations that directly benefit users beyond the farm gate—such as nutritional content, ripening control or processing characteristics—have not been commercialized to nearly the same extent as pest-control traits like insect resistance and herbicide tolerance. Product quality or 'output' traits have been anticipated since the earliest days of plant genetic engineering1. They are expected to improve public perceptions of genetic engineering2,3 and make agricultural and natural resource systems more responsive to environmental demands4. The question thus stands: Why have quality-improving innovations from agbiotech not been more readily forthcoming?

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Figure 1: Innovation in agbiotech.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded in part by a grant from the Council for Biotechnology Information.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Gregory D Graff

    Present address: Present address: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. gregory.graff@colostate.edu,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA),

    Gregory D Graff & Alan B Bennett

  2. Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, California, USA

    Gregory D Graff & Alan B Bennett

  3. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA

    David Zilberman

  4. Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics,

    David Zilberman

  5. InnovationAccess, Office of Research, University of California, Davis, California, USA

    Alan B Bennett

Authors
  1. Gregory D Graff
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  2. David Zilberman
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  3. Alan B Bennett
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Graff, G., Zilberman, D. & Bennett, A. The contraction of agbiotech product quality innovation. Nat Biotechnol 27, 702–704 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0809-702

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