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The European Parliament's adoption of new rules governing plants developed using new genomic techniques (NGTs) has been billed as a turning point for European plant breeding - a shift from process-based to product-based regulation that mirrors frameworks already in place across the Americas. But as Brussels moves to implement the reform over the next two years, a sharper question is emerging among scientists, investors and industry leaders: has Europe done enough, quickly enough, to reclaim ground lost to competitors who moved first?

Ahead of World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit London, where the topic of gene-editing trade and regulation will be debated on Wednesday 23 September, four experts with very different vantage points - Stuart Smyth, Research Chair in Agri-Food Innovation at the University of Saskatchewan; An Michiels, Director at AgKnowledge and a former global leader at Syngenta, Bayer Crop Science and Limagrain; Mathias Müller, Senior Director at Corteva Catalyst; and Christophe Gaillochet, Manager Plant Breeding Innovation at Euroseeds - shared their views on where the balance of innovation, capital and regulatory advantage is heading.

Has Europe already lost too much ground?

For Smyth, the answer is a qualified yes. He points out that the European Innovation Council has channelled significant funding through its Accelerator Programme to support adoption of gene-editing technologies for more resilient, nutritious crops - support that should help retain some of the bloc's public-sector scientists. But the bigger question, he argues, is whether multinational technology developers and smaller enterprises follow with matching investment.

“Europe has lost both fiscal and human capital over the past decade, putting them behind other key commodity producing countries,” Smyth said, adding that private investors “might well be cautious… for the next 3-5 years” while they weigh a regulatory landscape that still imposes a narrow limit on the number of genes that can be edited in a single plant.
Müller strikes a more optimistic tone. While acknowledging there is “still more ahead in finalizing and implementing the new framework” regionally, he sees the legislation as a meaningful signal. “I've found that agriculture investment and innovation typically follow predictable, science-based policies,” he said, arguing that Europe's “world class scientists and extraordinary research capabilities” position it to advance innovation “for local farmers and beyond.”

Michiels takes a middle path, arguing that legislation alone won't reverse the flow of capital toward the Americas - but that it can unlock advantages Europe already holds. She points to the bloc's “long tradition of excellence in developing seeds for food,” from wheat and barley to sunflower, oilseed, fruit and vegetable varieties, backed by some of the world's strongest genetic resource collections. In her view, the first wave of commercial NGT products is likely to focus on disease and pest resistance - traits with decades of research behind them and a proven route into breeding pipelines. “Without seeds, there will be no traits,” she said, predicting Europe can compete strongly in food crops even as the Americas continue to lead in scale crops like maize and soybean.

Where is capital concentrating?

All three experts agree the global landscape is shifting fast - but they emphasise different centres of gravity. Smyth highlights China's substantial investment in gene-editing technology, noting the country has become “one of the global leaders, at least in terms of patents granted,” while regulatory harmonisation across the Americas has positioned that region to attract technology investment as gene-edited products move seamlessly into the market.

Michiels describes a more distributed picture, with innovation and talent concentrated across “the US, Japan, China, India, Germany, France, the UK, and the Netherlands,” even as a growing wave of start-ups expands the talent pool further. She notes that the capital base itself is changing - traditional strategic corporate investment is now being joined by venture capital and, increasingly, by high-profile individual and sovereign investors. “Investors such as Sam Altman and Larry Ellison have shown growing interest in agricultural innovation, alongside significant investments from Middle Eastern and Asian funds,” she said.

This a trend she believes is creating self-reinforcing regional innovation hubs where “scientific excellence with regulatory clarity and access to investment” attract both companies and talent simultaneously.

What will determine leadership by 2035?

Here the four converge on a similar theme: no single lever - science, regulation or capital - decides the outcome alone.

Smyth frames the opportunity primarily around nutrition, arguing gene editing's greatest contribution may be improving the nutritional profile of crops, particularly fruit and vegetables. He calls it a chance to “substantially reduce global food insecurity since the launch of the Green Revolution in the 1960s,” since improved varieties of foods already routine in local diets can integrate seamlessly into food-insecure markets.

Müller noted that leadership will require several factors – including sound science, capital, shared accessibility and collaborative adoption, regulatory agility, and acceptance of these solutions by farmers and consumers alike.  Müller describes gene editing as “an incredible enabler” already drawing investment from innovators “from the Americas to Brussels to Africa to Asia.”

He points to Corteva's Genlytix ecosystem, launched in 2024, which combines the company's gene-editing portfolio with a network of universities, start-ups, nonprofits and industry partners, alongside in- and out-licensing, joint ventures and equity investments, as a model for translating access to germplasm and breeding expertise into real solutions.

“Gene editing is an exceptionally powerful tool, but it can be only effective when deployed within outstanding seed development programs,” she said - a dynamic she expects to matter more, not less, as climate change shifts pest and disease pressure and stricter rules on crop-protection products narrow farmers' other options.

Gaillochet frames leadership as an ecosystem question rather than a single-factor race. Building an ecosystem that leverages innovation to address concrete societal challenges such as climate change and sustainability, he argues, will be a key driver of leadership in agricultural gene editing. Science remains the foundation, he said, but effective collaboration among industry, startups and academia is what accelerates the development of more efficient genome-editing tools and the breeding of varieties with novel traits for resilience, pest resistance and sustainability - while access to capital is essential to scale those innovations into real-world products.

For Gaillochet, regulation is the piece that ties the ecosystem together: an agile framework that keeps pace with scientific progress is critical to ensuring gene-edited products can be fully realised by a broad range of players, including SMEs. Given the lengthy timelines of plant breeding, he argues, the policy decisions made over the next decade will shape adoption rates and define competitiveness and leadership by 2035 - and can either promote innovation or become a significant bottleneck. He believes regulatory requirements should be proportionate to risk and comparable to those applied to conventionally bred varieties, with a verification process that is clear, flexible, predictable and science-based, to incentivise developers to invest and innovate.

Could regulatory divergence create new trade barriers?

This is where the experts sound the most consistent warning, drawing on the precedent of first-generation GM crops.

Smyth is unequivocal: “Absolutely!” he said, pointing to the trade disruption caused by a lack of regulatory harmonisation since GM crops were first commercialised in the late 1990s - friction that persists today. He argues gene editing should be anchored to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a tool against hunger and poverty, suggesting that firm UN-level backing would “significantly mitigate” opposition to the technology.

Michiels agrees the sector risks repeating GM-era mistakes, where regulatory differences “complicated international trade and delayed technology adoption.”

She sees growing international recognition that harmonised frameworks are needed - not least for the smallholder farmers who produce over 30% of the world's food - alongside fair pricing for access to trait and NGT intellectual property. But she cautions that harmonisation is not sufficient on its own: if compliance costs run too high, only the largest multinationals will be able to commercialise new varieties, squeezing out the small and medium-sized breeding companies that account for more than half of the global fruit and vegetable seed market and that often develop the varieties which go on to lead the market.

Müller is similarly focused on alignment, describing global adoption of science-based regulation as essential to realising gene editing's potential. He is “cautiously optimistic that the groundwork has been laid” for putting innovation into farmers' hands, but stresses that reaching that point will require engagement “across the entire value chain” on innovation, regulation and trade policy together.

Gaillochet agrees divergence can amplify trade barriers, preventing gene-edited products from reaching the market and delivering their expected benefits to society. He points to two main sources of the problem: the definition of gene-edited crops, and the regulatory procedures attached to them. Plants considered equivalent to conventionally bred varieties and exempt from GMO legislation in some jurisdictions are classified as GMOs in others and therefore subject to extensive risk-assessment procedures before authorisation, he noted - and even where products aren't blocked outright, differing data requirements across regions drive up development costs, since regulatory packages often have to be tailored market by market. This lengthens time-to-market, increases uncertainty, and disproportionately burdens SMEs, while farmers face delayed access to improved varieties as a result.

The starting point for harmonisation, Gaillochet argues, is establishing science-based, internationally recognised definitions of gene-edited plants relative to conventionally bred ones. He sees a product-based approach - focused on the characteristics of the final product rather than the breeding method used to create it - as a strong foundation for that effort, alongside international cooperation through bodies such as the WTO and engagement with countries that already have experience regulating gene-edited crops, including Argentina, Brazil and the United States, to identify best practice and promote greater alignment.

Will IP eclipse regulation as the next battleground?

Smyth, asked directly whether patent ownership could overtake regulation as the industry's defining competitive factor, is doubtful. Drawing a parallel to the GM era - when patents briefly slowed the shift from single-trait to stacked-trait varieties before a wave of cross-licensing agreements between 2005 and 2006 resolved the bottleneck - he argues regulation, not IP, remains “by far the largest barrier” and expects that to hold true as gene-editing adoption accelerates.

Gaillochet offers a complementary view from the IP side of the ledger. While regulation provides the path to market, he argues, intellectual property frameworks shape the innovation landscape itself - influencing investment incentives, access to technologies, and how value is distributed across the breeding chain. Plant breeding is a lengthy process involving several layers of innovation, from editing tools and methods to specific traits and germplasm, he noted, all requiring significant upfront investment; IP rights, including plant variety rights and patents, help innovators earn a fair return on that investment and so support continued innovation. At the same time, he stressed, access to enabling technologies, genetic resources and commercial varieties remains essential to a competitive and diverse breeding sector.

Given the diversity of business models across Europe and the coexistence of plant variety rights and patent protection, Gaillochet said it is important to maintain a balanced framework - one that rewards innovation while preserving access for further breeding. He pointed to research and breeding exemptions and public-private partnerships as tools that can facilitate access to protected genetic material at specific stages of development. Euroseeds, he said, supports a strong plant variety rights system, further implementation of a limited breeder's exemption in patent law across Europe, and greater transparency around patented traits in commercial varieties through tools such as the publicly accessible PINTO database - alongside access to patented technologies via mandatory licensing under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) conditions, with favourable terms for SMEs.

A widening but uneven window

Taken together, the four perspectives sketch a landscape where Europe's regulatory pivot has reopened a door without guaranteeing who walks through it first. Capital is already diversifying beyond traditional agribusiness investors, China and the Americas have a head start on commercial deployment, and the industry's own history with GM crops suggests that without genuine harmonisation, new trade friction is a real risk rather than a hypothetical one. How those tensions play out - and what it means for the UK's own parallel debate over whether to diverge from or align with Brussels - will be a central theme when Smyth, Michiels, Müller and Gaillochet take the stage together at World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit London on Wednesday 23 September, for a session dedicated to gene-editing trade and regulation.

For agribusiness leaders, investors, policymakers, seed companies, technology developers and food system innovators, this is a critical conversation to be part of.

Join the discussion in London and connect with the decision-makers shaping the next decade of agri-tech innovation. Don't miss out, buy your ticket here!