Biotechnologies in agriculture and forestry: Governance insights from a comparative systematic review of barriers and recommendations

Highlights

• Biotechnologies are pervasive in agriculture and becoming increasingly common in forestry

• Despite their potential benefits, biotechnology innovations pose a range of potential risks, and face implementation barriers

• The agricultural literature offers insights for anticipating barriers to adopting biotechnologies as they increase in forestry

• Social sciences insights can contribute to an inclusive governance system in which controversial biotechnologies are implemented

Abstract

The application of biotechnological innovations has increased in agriculture and forestry over the past two decades. Numerous benefits of biotechnologies are documented; however, implementation is controversial and continues to face technical, biophysical and societal barriers. The longer history of agricultural biotechnology holds potential lessons for emerging proposals in forestry, and vice versa. Using a systematic review and content analysis of the scholarly literature in agriculture and forestry (235 articles) between 1989 and 2017, we compare these two sectors in terms of justifications for the use of biotechnologies, barriers to and recommendations for implementation, and types of evidence considered. The primary benefit of biotechnologies identified in the agricultural literature is food security, whereas forest productivity and adaptation to climate change are the most common motivating justifications in a forest context. We find a relatively greater emphasis in the forestry literature on regulatory and legal barriers. Both fields emphasize recommendations to address barriers related to lack of knowledge and governance processes despite relatively less emphasis on these items as identified barriers. Relatively few (32%) forestry articles were informed by insights from the social sciences and humanities as compared with 51% of those in agriculture. We discuss the implications of anticipated public opposition to tree biotechnology and associated perceptions of risk unique to trees. We also discuss biotechnology governance dilemmas within an “upstream” approach, highlighting the need for meaningful ways of involving stakeholders, rights holders and different publics at the earliest possible stage of the implementation of biotechnologies.

Introduction

Over the past two decades, the application of innovative biotechnologies in the agricultural and forestry sectors has increased (Plomion et al., 2016; Tester and Langridge, 2010). Yet, compared to agriculture, the forest sector is at relatively early stages of adopting biotechnologies (Lelu-Walter et al., 2013). Unlike agricultural crops, forest trees are mostly undomesticated, long-lived, and slow to reach reproductive maturity. These characteristics make them challenging genetic subjects which, in part, accounts for a lag in genetic knowledge of trees compared to crops (Aitken and Bemmels, 2016). However, momentum towards the increase use of biotechnologies in forestry is gathering. Specifically, biotechnological modifications to make trees insect-resistant are increasingly being considered to improve forest health (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2019) and enhance resilience to climate change impacts, such as extreme drought events and forest fires (Hagerman and Pelai, 2018). Biotechnology also holds the potential to increase timber production efficiency (Porth et al., 2015). Field trials of genetically modified (GM) trees, while still uncommon relative to agricultural crops (James, 2014; Lu and Hu, 2011), are on the rise globally (FAO, 2010). For example, only 15 tree-based biotechnology trials were recorded in the 1980s and 1990s; 41 between 2000 and 2009, and 50 since 2010, with 2018 having the largest number recorded ever (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2019).

In this study, “biotechnology” is treated broadly to refer to the “application of biological knowledge to practical needs such as technologies for altering reproduction, or technologies for locating, identifying, comparing or otherwise manipulating genes” (Walter and Menzies, 2010, p. 3). We incorporate a broad spectrum of biotechnology tools within the scope of this study, including genetic engineering and genomics. Genetic engineering (GE) involves altering the genetic structure of an organism by either removing or introducing DNA, or taking genes directly from one organism and inserting it in another (Bawa and Anilakumar, 2013). Genomic tools involve detecting DNA sequence differences across individuals in natural populations (Allendorf et al., 2010). Examples of GE are more commonplace in the agricultural sector, where genes with desirable traits are being inserted to enhance nutrient content (Potrykus, 2003) and increase drought resistance (Gosal et al., 2009). Examples of biotechnologies used in the forestry sector more commonly involve genomic tools to identify networks of genes that produce the most robust phenotypes for specific environmental conditions (Sork et al., 2013), with proposed benefits including increased fire resistance in trees (Peil et al., 2007) and assisting trees to better adapt to changing climates (Aitken and Bemmels, 2016).

Despite the potential benefits of biotechnological innovations in both sectors, their benefits are unevenly distributed. The United States, for example, constitutes the major single grower of GM crops globally (James, 2014), but only a handful of GM crop types being commercialized (i.e. 80% of the global GM crop area are for soybeans and maize) (James, 2014). Although limited information is available, similar emerging trends, albeit nascent, have been reported in forestry (FAO, 2010; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2019). Additionally, the implementation of biotechnologies remains controversial and continues to face real or potential barriers (further described below) to their implementation. As biotechnological innovations in forestry shift from trial to practice, it becomes increasingly important to consider the governance domain within which they will be implemented.

In this paper, we take advantage of the longer history of use of biotechnology in agriculture and use a systematic review to draw comparisons and insights for anticipating potentially shared (and also unique) barriers to adopting biotechnologies as they become more commonly pursued in the forest sector. We ground our inquiry within the scholarship on risk governance (Poortinga and Pidgeon, 2005; Satterfield and Roberts, 2008) and climate change adaptation (specifically the concept of barriers) (Moser and Ekstrom, 2010). The former literature highlights the importance of paying careful attention to the risks and benefits associated with emerging technologies as they are perceived and experienced by different publics and actor groups (Finucane et al., 2000), as these groups may function as potential barriers to implementation (Herring, 2008; Porth and El-Kassaby, 2014). To explore the concepts of barriers more deeply, we draw from the climate adaptation literature that has developed a strong basis for understanding the myriad types of barriers (including but not limited to perceived risks) that shape the uptake of new innovations, such as biotechnologies intended to respond to climate change. Accordingly, we follow the definition of barriers in the climate adaptation literature proposed by Moser & Ekstrom (2010, p. 22027): “obstacles that can potentially be overcome with concerted effort, creative management, change of thinking, prioritization, and related shifts in resources, land uses, institutions, etc.” Our interest in barriers is analytical rather than prescriptive. That is, we use the concept to characterize the landscape of biotechnology governance for the purpose of anticipating potential controversies as they may arise (rather than to presuppose the “rightness” or “wrongness” of a given technology from which to overcome a given barrier, which we see as a broader societal question worthy of deliberation).

Connecting insights from risk governance and barriers in the context of biotechnology suggests the following classes of potential barriers to implementation: technical (e.g. limited genetic knowledge of trees), biophysical (e.g. risk of invasiveness or cross-pollination), societal (e.g. public opposition), economic (e.g. high cost of the technology), and ethical (e.g. contested values). In the case of societal barriers, previous research from diverse sectors has shown that risks – which may be real or perceived (Frewer et al., 2013; Neale and Kremer, 2011) – may prevent the diffusion of novel technologies (MacVaugh and Schiavone, 2010), including biotechnology in agriculture (Herring, 2008) and forestry (Porth and El-Kassaby, 2014). In addition to barriers, recommendations for advancing the implementation of biotechnologies are emerging in the literature (e.g. FAO, 2011; Hagerman and Pelai, 2018). Yet, the extent to which these recommendations align with real or perceived barriers remains underexplored.

With up to 70 new biotechnology crop products becoming available in the next decade (pending regulatory approval) (James, 2014) and considering the more recent interest in the potential for biotechnology in forest health (e.g. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2019), and genetically modified trees more broadly (e.g. FAO, 2010), it is timely to take stock of the scholarly literature and review the benefits for using biotechnologies, identified barriers (including risks), recommendations, and potential biases. There is, of course, a plethora of biotechnology applications in other sectors, including medicine, cattle breeding, aquaculture, and others. However, in an effort to make meaningful comparisons, our focus here is on plant biotechnology, so we limit our inquiry to the agricultural and tree biotechnology literatures. No analysis that we are aware of has yet systematically compared the scholarly literature in both fields. In response to this gap, we address two objectives: i) characterize the features of the scholarly biotechnology literature in agriculture and forestry (e.g. in terms of geographic focus, organism considered, recommendations made, and evidence considered) and ii) identify and analyze the benefits (in the form of overarching scientific justifications) and potential barriers (including risks) to the use of biotechnology over time. In so doing, we identify opportunities for cross-sectoral learning, highlight potential mismatches between barriers and recommendations to adopting biotechnologies, and reflect on their implications for research and governance.