UK PLANT scientists have already lost valuable EU-funded work as a result of Brexit – and the onus is now on Westminster to support the sector as it awaits the post-Brexit political freedom to capitalise on its GM expertise.

Speaking in Cambridge last Friday, Jim Godfrey, chairman of crop research organisation NIAB, revealed that it had been notified that future EU variety testing contracts, commissioned directly by the Community Plant Variety Office, would no longer be awarded to the UK.

Because of the two-year timescales for testing many of the species involved, those lost contracts – valued at around £600k per year – would have lasted beyond the envisaged Brexit date of March 30, 2019. As such, Mr Godfrey said NIAB's experience was perhaps an "early warning signal" of the Commission’s negotiating tactics and the longer term implications for the UK agri-science sector.

“NIAB is facing the collateral damage of the politics behind the Brexit negotiations," he said. “The timing of this notification – without any prior consultation – came as a shock, not only because the UK is and remains a full EU member until the confirmed date of Brexit, but perhaps more significantly because NIAB is the only entrusted examination centre within the EU for 678 of the 864 ornamental species involved."

Mr Godfrey suggested that there was an element of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" about the European Commission's move, as EU plant breeding companies would now struggle to find alternative testing centres with the same level of scientific expertise and testing facilities.

NIAB, he said, occupied a "unique space" in plant variety testing, with extensive reference collections built up over many years by its experienced staff. There had also been major investment in upgrading the organisation’s Cambridge headquarters in recent years.

“If the UK Government is serious about its commitment to safeguarding innovation and maintaining the UK science base it must step in to support NIAB in this case,” insisted Mr Godfrey, who promised that the UK agri-tech sector had a lot to gain from Brexit, once it was formally freed from the 'politicisation' of EU agri-science.

“There are major opportunities for UK crop science of more evidence-based and proportionate regulation of innovative technologies such as GM and particularly the new generation of gene editing techniques," he said. "The politicisation of these issues at EU level has acted like a drag anchor on EU investment and innovation, and I am confident that post-Brexit the UK will be well-placed to cement its position as an international centre of crop science expertise, supporting improved UK crop production, attracting inward investment and developing an export market for technological solutions.”