Who researches new GMO crop varieties?


        Biotechnology research takes place in universities, government labs, and the private sector. Private-sector involvement in biotech research has grown dramatically since 1980, when the Supreme Court's Diamond v. Chakrabarty decision permitted patents on living organisms. Most basic research in genetics, molecular biology, and biochemistry, the scientific foundations of GMO crop development, continues to be conducted in universities, and studies show that this basic science has substantial impact on downstream scientific activity. But the downstream activity itself -- the development, field testing, and marketing -- increasingly are the purview of biotechnology firms.

     The normal pattern now is for universities to both publish from and patent their bioscience innovations, then license them to private firms for further development. University-industry relationships underlying such arrangements have expanded greatly in the past few decades. Many are worried that these relationships have undue influence on the types of research in which university professors are engaged. Private agricultural research expenditures began surpassing public expenditures in 1981. In 1996, they stood at approximately $4.4 billion, compared to approximately $3.2 billion in the public sector. Federally financed agricultural R&D in U.S. universities amounted in 2002 to nearly $0.7 billion. Industry-funded support for university agricultural research was perhaps 15% of this figure, although precise estimates are not available.
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