Private profit fear for public research

This year, the Government launched with a fanfare its Food 2030 strategy. The aim is to promote sustainable agriculture which doesn't damage the environment.

A research centre at Stockbridge, near Selby has come up with ways of growing crops more sustainably by clever manipulation of biodiversity. They have discovered ways to control the aphids which eat the crops by natural means. It's done by cultivating insects which destroy the aphids, rather than by using chemicals.

Who pays for this scientific work which costs millions of pounds? We do. And because it is publicly-funded, it used to be available to any grower who wanted to make use of it. This seems to by the kind of thing the Government's new food strategy is aiming to encourage. So why change the system for another which jeopardises the future of this kind of work?

Graham Ward, the chief executive of Stockbridge Technology Centre, warns of the effect of handing over control of some of the purse strings of research funding to big business. For example, research into natural aphid control would look unappealing to agri-chemical companies with pesticides to sell.

Stockbridge, originally a farm, was taken over during the war as part of a drive to improve agricultural techniques and feed a hungry nation. Today, as a centre for applied research, it takes laboratory science funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and works out how it might be of practical use to farmers.

One of its triumphs goes back to the time when it was a world centre for rhubarb research. Their work on the best way of growing forced rhubarb has helped put back into the news what remained of Yorkshire's "rhubarb triangle" around south Leeds, Wakefield and Pontefract. A portrait of one of the former directors at Stockbridge depicts him holding not academic scrolls, but two sticks of rhubarb.

Stockbridge is now pioneering integrated pest management, especially the "parasitoids" which can eliminate aphids.

Entomologist Dr Pat Croft says: "What we focus most on is the biological control of pests in protected edibles like tomatoes and cucumbers.

"This doesn't eliminate chemicals completely, but is does mean that the use of pesticides can be reduced. It is similar to the way that ladybirds help gardeners keep aphids under control."

Dr Croft is investigating how farmers might set up banks of the beneficial insects close to the crop that requires protection, the insects springing into action when needed. In a lettuce crop for instance the parasitoids – the beneficial insects – lay their eggs in the aphids and kill them.

Stockbridge worked on how to make the science work in a commercial environment through something called LINK projects funded by Defra and others. All their research findings were made available to anyone in the horticultural industry.

"All the people see it, we have meetings with growers about it, everybody knows it's going on," says Graham Ward. "Which bits we've tried, which bits we've not tried. So nothing's secret, it's free and open to everybody. That's public money, invested in public research with institutions for the public good of the industry."

But all that changed from the beginning of this year when Defra stopped funding LINK projects. Instead, there's the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) which in the jargon is an "executive non-departmental public body". It spends public funds in partnership with the private sector and already operates in industries such as car making and engineering.

A new scheme for horticulture within TSB has now been launched and there's 13m on the table. Public funds are matched by private cash. The source for the latter will probably be a company whose interest in commissioning research is not to add to the universal sum of knowledge but to help give them a competitive edge. For them the results will be a commercial secret.

That's fine if it's only their money they are spending. But it's not. A lot of it is ours – the old funding money for LINK projects.

"There is a fundamental difference in the way that TSB operates to the way that LINK or the levy boards operate," says Dr Martin McPherson, head of research at Stockbridge. "Because it's all about competitive innovation, when you put a bid together it's commercially driven by companies. If they're successful and the project goes ahead, the knowledge from that work will be confidential to them."

Graham Ward says that he has no problem with this. In the long run, it might prove to be a more efficient way of delivering research because in time, the data will find its way into the wider world.

But what about growers who have become accustomed to free access to Stockbridge research? "They're used to us telling them about what we're doing," says Dr McPherson. "But we're not going to be able to tell them because the work we are doing is for a particular company and it's their private knowledge."

Stockbridge fear their work on integrated pest management will not appeal to big business. "It's certainly not attractive to the ag-chem industry," says Dr McPherson. "A lot of those same companies have a bio-control operation as well."

It is curious that no sooner do we have a Food 2030 strategy for sustainable farming than a new system is introduced which relies on research investment from manufacturers looking for their own pay-off first.

A Defra spokesman said, "The Technology Strategy Board has been set up to support research and development of innovations to benefit UK businesses in the same way as the previous LINK schemes. TSB is funding a sustainable agriculture and food innovation programme with new investment of 50m. Defra will also be re-investing funding from the previous LINK projects into this programme."

CW 10/4/10