Dr. Ewen Mullins:

Deputy Carthy asked if we have done research, and we have done so. We have looked at the impact on biodiversity and co-existence, or the issue of pollen-spread across the landscape. In terms of biodiversity, in our potato study we took a gene from a wild potato which gives a conventional potato resistance to late blight. The overwhelming majority of our potato varieties are very susceptible to late blight so by giving them that resistance gene, we effectively gave the crop immunity. We used a new breeding technique which was not editing but a different type of technique which still comes under the umbrella of new breeding techniques. Over the three years of the EU study, we grew the potato in the field in Oak Park and looked at the biodiversity impact below ground on soil microbes and also on insects above the ground. There was no difference between the conventional variety sitting 6 m away in other plots versus what we were seeing with this new-bred variety of potato. What we did see was that it reduced the fungicide load on the crop by approximately ten sprays.

That was purely a proof of concept and it just illustrated the fact that with new breeding-----