The Congress and the Biotech Fair advance the revolution that is coming in the EU with genetic editing and biostimulants

• China, the USA, Japan, England, India, Australia, Israel… already have regulations to favour developments such as CRISPR. The EU approved a first proposal in February and it is already being debated at Council level. During the Congress and the Forum Biotech The potential of these technologies in plant improvement and their emerging regulation will be analyzed.

• After many years without a clear legal framework, the offer of new biostimulants to improve yields is beginning to adjust to European regulations. Biovegen, which has already confirmed the presence of some 400 businessmen and scientists at its congress, will analyse the situation and perspectives on this new generation of products.

• Biotech Attraction, integrated into Pavilion 1 in Innova&Tech, expects the best attendance figures in its history and breaks the record for exhibitors: up to 20 Spanish, Dutch and Israeli biotechnology companies will participate. The CDTI itself, the country's main agency for financing innovation, has confirmed its presence.

Madrid, 4-10-2024.- This year, Biovegen will consolidate its commitment to biotechnology and Fruit Attraction (Madrid, from 8 to 10 October) like never before. Its multitudinous day - scheduled for Wednesday, 9 October, and which is expected to be attended by between 300 and 400 businessmen and researchers - has reached the category of a congress and its event Biotech Attraction has improved the figures of its three previous editions. Indeed, there will be 20 innovative agricultural companies exhibiting, including some of the most prominent or most likely to grow in the country and many others from abroad, from technological hubs such as Holland and Israel. Its offer, located within the framework of Innova Tech (Pavilion 1) next to Smart Agro (automation and information technologies) and Innovation Hub (an exhibition of fruit and vegetables and auxiliary industry products), will also have as an exhibitor the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI), the main agency in the country dedicated to financing this type of project. For all these reasons, Biovegen is confident, also thanks to its better location, that its event will break records of visitors. The 1st Congress Biotech Attraction, for its part, will bear witness to the true technological revolution that is coming to the EU: the one that will be led in the medium term by new genetic editing techniques in plant improvement and the already very real and present offer of a generation of biostimulants destined to increase yields with more sustainable and economic techniques, complementary to conventional fertilizers.

“In proportional terms, we are growing in a similar way to the fair itself. Fruit Attraction is an unmissable event and this year it will have more than 100,000 visitors. The industry has to go hand in hand with innovation, especially biotechnology, and in this field, we are experiencing a critical moment. This is where Biovegen takes centre stage: with our exhibition, with our Biotech Congress, we act as a bridge between research and business,” says its president, José Pellicer.

The European agrobiotechnology sector is confident that in the medium term the necessary legal change can be made to make the definitive leap forward in new genetic editing techniques (NGT's). On February 7, the European Parliament (EP) approved the Commission's (EC) proposal to regulate these techniques, which include its most promising tool, CRISPR. It is a first but decisive step and shortly, after the European elections are held and the new Commission is formed, this text will be debated in the Council, where all member states are represented and where it is foreseeable that amendments will be proposed. These changes will have to be discussed three-way - by the EC, the Council and the EP - and finally voted on by the European legislature. However, the progress is key because, for the first time, it is accepted that NGT's escape the restrictive regulation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs or transgenics). When this happens, the EU will be at a regulatory level similar to that which has been in place for years or decades by Western powers or countries where agribusiness has a great influence. And the list of those who have taken this decisive step is important: the USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, India, Israel, China, Japan and England, which, after Brexit, decided to distance itself from community policy in this regard. During the Biotech Attraction Congress, Diego Orzáez, a researcher at the IBMCP-Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants, is expected to clarify the potential available for applying CRISPR to plant improvement, and Leire Escajedo, from the University of the Basque Country, will analyse the opportunities in plant breeding that this new legal body would allow. Meanwhile, during the Biotech Forum - which will take place in the exhibition space promoted by Biovegen - companies such as Laboratorios Tecnológicos de Levante or Madeinplant will address this same topic.

“CRISPR, which consists of genetic modification based on activating and/or deactivating genes of the organism itself to obtain improved plants in which diseases are eliminated or to achieve crops resistant to drought or pests, is already an emerging reality in Europe, it only requires the legal push that the rest of the developed world already has,” says Pellicer himself.

The situation with biostimulants is different. This is a market - dedicated to substances, mixtures and microorganisms that are not actually nutrient supplements, but that are responsible for stimulating the natural processes of plants, improving their yields - that has been growing at annual figures of between 10 and 121 TP3T (with a turnover of between 1.5 and 2 billion in the EU). And it has done so under a somewhat 'improper' legislation, that of fertilizers. This situation changed when, unlike in the case of NGTs, the EU took the initiative and began to regulate this flourishing industry. It did so based on what these substances achieve, on the specific benefit obtained from their use, which, in turn, requires scientific accreditation of such function. It was in July 2022 when EU Regulation 2019/1009 came into force, which, for the first time, included all types of fertilizers and specifically specified the scope of the aforementioned biostimulants. After a period in which this legislation has raised many doubts among the sector, the director of Regulatory Affairs at AlgaEnergy - a Spanish multinational specialized in these products - will address during the Biotech Attraction Congress the 'Situation and perspectives' generated by this regulation. In a similar vein, various companies - such as Atens, Cultiply, Adama or Valgenetics - will report at the Biotech Forum on the progress they have made in this cutting-edge field.

As in previous editions, Biotech Attraction will provide a meeting room (for exhibitors and professionals) - where Biovegen has already arranged almost 200 meetings - as well as a lounge (the aforementioned Forum) in which up to 23 emerging companies or research centres will exhibit their latest developments and projects.