Dr. Ewen Mullins:

Sorry, it went from ten sprays down to two. The control which had no resistance required ten sprays to maintain the crop. It really depends on the environment, including weather, humidity and the various factors for late blight that we know. We used an integrated pest management approach that included modelling the weather. Our default position was that we would not spray unless we absolutely had to. At the moment, that is not necessarily the practice because farmers must protect their crop from late blight. We reduced the sprays from ten down to two but those two sprays were purely precautionary. What we could see is that in another year we might have one spray or three sprays but we are getting the spraying down below the 50% target, which is what is needed for farm to fork.

The key issue, as I said, is that there was no impact on biodiversity relative to what we would see with a normal potato crop. That is exciting at one level because, as I said, it is a proof of concept. However, the key point is that it takes a long time to breed new varieties. We are talking a decade or up to 13 years for a potato variety. We know that because we have been breeding them in Teagasc for over 50 years now. With the new breeding techniques, we are accelerating that breeding process. We are effectively halving the amount of time it takes to get a new variety. It ticks all of those boxes. We could still cross a wild potato with a conventional potato to get resistance but when we do that, we are mixing all of the genes from the wild potato with all of the genes from the conventional one and we get a lot of traits that we do not want. It takes many years to dilute out that background of genetic material that is there.

On the issue of co-existence or the pollen spread, we looked at ways to minimise that. There are very practical ways to minimise pollen spread within a crop. We looked at oilseed rape, which produces a lot of pollen that can travel for up to 150 m from the crop. That tails away very quickly away from the crop, which is not surprising. Measures such as isolation distances, keeping the crop in the centre of the farm and farmers working together in a co-operative environment all help. With the latter, farmers communicate with each other and provide information on when they are growing material and where. All of these very practical measures can ensure effective co-existence. The important point about co-existence is that it is preserving the identity of the crop that is being grown but for organic growers it is extremely important that they can grow their crop on their farm and know there is no risk of the organic thresholds being exceeded. That is very important for certification of organic systems.

Deputy Carthy also asked about seed ownership. Basically, in North America, Canada, and Argentina, farmers go to the seed co-op and they sign an agreement that if they purchase genetically modified seed and grow it, they are prohibited from saving it. Farmers do not have to grow it if they do not want to in that scenario. When they go back to the co-op each year, as is the case in Ireland, they want to purchase the best seed.

As is the case with farmers in Ireland when purchasing seed, they want to purchase the best seed. Putting the best seed in the ground lays the foundation for a good crop. That is typically the approach taken in North America, Canada, etc. There are ownership rights when someone purchases a genetically modified seed, obviously outside Europe as GM crops are not grown in Europe. That is well documented.