A NEW REPORT from the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission argues that biotechnology research agendas should take the public good more into account.

In its last report before being dissolved at the end of this month (April 2005), the AEBC recommends a change of emphasis regarding agricultural research agendas.

It argues that the public good should be a more explicit objective within agricultural research alongside such objectives as purely commercial wealth creation.

“For agricultural biotechnology research specifically, sustainability should be an overarching and key strategic driver,” according to the report.

It further states that there is some danger of technology becoming too dominant a driver of agricultural research agendas.

Technologies should not become ends in themselves, but should be integrated with explicit goals of benefit to society and sustainable agriculture, and systems-based, less reductive research should be given more priority, the AEBC says.

The commission also recommends more public transparency and involvement in the setting of research agendas, partly because the bodies currently involved in this are perceived by many as being non-representative and as having vested interests.

“Genuine public engagement in agenda-setting is rare, and we should have more of it,” said Jeff Maxwell, former director of the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, at the launch of the report.

“There is a fear among scientists of engaging with the public, but they are thereby missing out on a lot of good common sense,” Prof. Maxwell said.