Promoting biocontrol innovation responds to many points in the European Council’s Strategic Agenda for the next five years

June 2024

On 27 June the European Council published its Strategic Agenda for the next five years.

The Council vowed to increase Europe’s long-term competitiveness while assuring the quality of goods and services in Europe. The EU’s leaders linked this to closing Europe’s growth, productivity, and innovation gaps with international partners and main competitors. (p.18)

1. Europe is the source of extensive biocontrol innovation, but farmers are not able to access this innovation because an outdated regulatory framework creates bottlenecks that make time-to-market for new biocontrol innovations three times longer than in competitor markets like Brazil and the USA. While farmers in those countries have access to an ever-expanding plant protection toolbox that allows them to be agile in the face of changing patterns of pests and diseases and to be responsive to consumer demands, Europe’s farmers have lost more than 22% of their plant protection toolbox since 2017! That means Europe’s farmers are competing with one hand tied behind their backs.
2. Even more ironically, many of the innovations being used by Brazilian and US farmers were originally funded by EU research funds; policy incoherence means that the EU is subsidising farmers outside of Europe to compete with European farmers! This occurs because start-ups are under pressure from investors to secure revenue streams as quickly as possible. When the time-to-market is 2-3 years in Brazil or the USA and 8-10 in Europe, it’s not surprising that they take their EU-financed innovations elsewhere.

The European Council notes that Europe’s greatest asset to increase competitiveness and consumer wellbeing is the Single Market and vows to deepen it further. (p.19)

1. Farmers urgently need a Single Market for biocontrol products. Having a single European authority to authorise biocontrol innovations being placed on the market would reduce the strain that public authorities are currently under since the fragmented nature of the two-step EU registration then national authorisation multiplies the number of dossiers. A Single Market for biocontrol would aggregate markets that are currently fragmented across individual Member States; that would improve the cost-benefit ratio for bringing biocontrol products to market. Most importantly, a Single Market would allow all EU farmers to have equal access to biocontrol innovations; today farmers across the EU are operating on an uneven playing field. Since the food that farmers grow circulates on the Single Market, it also makes sense that the tools they use are also available on a harmonised basis.

The European Council stresses the important for the EU to promote a competitive, sustainable and resilient agricultural sector that continues to ensure food security while protecting nature and reversing the degradation of ecosystems. (p. 20)

1. Biocontol innovation should be a Key Enabling Technology for making Europe’s agriculture more competitive, sustainable and resilient, but Europe’s regulatory framework currently gets in the way. The current two-step EU registration then national authorisation is slow and resource-intensive. The result is that EU farmers’ toolbox is shrinking, and they have limited access to biocontrol innovations, which are reach the EU market at a drip.

The European Council promises to promote an innovation- and business-friendly environment through support to research and streamlining regulatory frameworks. (p. 20)

1. Continued support for research and innovation capacity is important to make Europe a compelling environment for bringing innovative biocontrol products to market, but it is not a panacea and can actually be counterproductive if regulatory bottlenecks are unresolved. The counterintuitive reason for this is that investors include time-to-market in their calculations about where to put their money. If there is a backlog due to regulatory bottlenecks (which is currently the case in Europe), more research just makes the waiting line longer.
2. The outdated, fragmented regulatory framework for bringing biocontrol innovations to market is ripe for reducing bureaucracy and regulatory simplification, which can make it more innovation-friendly while preserving high levels of safety, health, and environmental protection. The current framework uses policymakers’ resources inefficiently and makes it difficult to justify investments in bringing biocontrol products to market in Europe given the present cost structures and opportunity costs which make biocontrol ROI in the EU 30% lower than the global average.
3. The attention of the Council on the needs of SMEs and start-ups is welcome. Europe is home to many innovative biocontrol start-ups, but their investors want to see them secure income streams as quickly as possible. Since the investors are not willing to wait 8 to 10 years, the EU’s start-ups are obliged to go to markets with more efficient regulatory procedures. Large companies have more diverse, patient sources of funding, so the current regulatory framework discourages vibrant competition because the obstacles for new market entrants are so high.

Learn more about the Biocontrol Coalition and our call for a robust, dedicated regulatory framework for biocontrol products.