Mexico enters countries with a plant biotechnology pole

Only Argentina, Australia, India, Israel, Mexico and Singapore add to the list of countries that host plant biotechnology poles and, with the exception of Australia, all of them have only one, revealed a report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Most of the inventive and scientific output in biotechnology comes from a handful of countries. The United States, Germany, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea accumulate more than 55 and 80% of all articles and patents in agricultural biotechnology, respectively.

There is a geographical divide between where plant biotechnology innovation occurs and where transgenic crops are harvested.

In most cases, the innovation hubs in the field of agricultural biotechnology are located in large metropolitan areas, either in global innovation hubs or in specialized clusters where biotechnology competencies abound.

Also, highlights the WIPO, this is applicable to developing countries, where national agricultural biotechnology poles are usually located in large urban areas, such as São Paulo (Brazil) or Cape Town. Some innovation poles are close to rural areas – for example, Viçosa in Brazil or Irapuato in Mexico.

Plant biotechnology

Wherever they are located, their presence is often associated with influential public institutions, such as universities, international agricultural research centers, or national agricultural research structures.

In short, agricultural biotechnology is a sector in which innovation must be adapted to local agroecological conditions. While most inventions in the field of plant biotechnology come from high-income countries – for example, the United States, Western Europe and East Asian countries – they need adaptation to different climatic and soil conditions .

Most of the transgenic crops used in emerging middle-income countries in the late 1990s were germplasm adapted locally from their North American counterparts.

The result is that innovation poles in plant biotechnology exist in many parts of the world. However, WIPO data shows that agricultural biotechnology innovation in many countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia is geographically concentrated.