Who gets access to innovations in plant breeding? This seemingly modest but decisive question was at the heart of an event in the European Parliament in early June. The event, organized by the Agricultural Crop Licensing Platform (ACLP), demonstrated how transparent licensing can foster innovation while ensuring fair competition.

Why licenses decide future opportunities

New breeding technologies such as genome editing with CRISPR/Cas can make plants more resilient, increase yields, and reduce the use of crop protection products. Many of these traits are patented. Patents are crucial to enable investment in precisely this kind of research. Without legal protection, there are no incentives for research and development.

But patents must be transparent. This is exactly where platforms such as ACLP or ILP (International Licensing Platform) come in. They list transparently which traits are patented, who holds the rights, and under what conditions licenses are available. This facilitates cooperation and opens the market to all breeding companies—whether large or small.

Tailwind from the public

The fact that access to modern breeding is not only a concern for experts is shown by a new representative Civey survey from July 2025, commissioned by various associations of the German agricultural and food industry.

The results show: many consumers see concrete benefits in new breeding technologies, such as reduced pesticide use, and are generally open to practical regulations.

79.4 percent of respondents also stated that precisely optimized plants from new breeding methods should not be regulated more strictly than those produced through classical mutation breeding.

At the same time, 80 percent are unaware that already three quarters of our crops were bred through random genetic changes—often induced with radiation or chemicals—without being labeled as genetically modified.

A survey conducted by gfs in 2024 came to the same conclusion: acceptance of genome editing rises significantly when a clear ecological benefit is evident. Over 80 percent support the use of the technology if it makes plants more resistant to diseases.

The Brussels debate made clear: patents and innovation are not contradictory—as long as access is regulated fairly. Platforms such as ACLP can help ensure that the opportunities of modern breeding are open to all breeders. Europe should support this path and shape the regulation of new technologies so that progress and sustainability go hand in hand.

These patent platforms already exist

Transparency is just as important for innovation as protection for inventors. Patents are essentially nothing other than the disclosure of the “recipe” of an invention so that others can use it against a licensing fee. Transparency is therefore in the industry’s own interest. On a European level, the industry has already established several platforms—also open to Swiss breeders—to increase transparency in plant breeding:

• The European database Patent Information and Transparency Online (PINTO), created by Euroseeds, enhances transparency by linking variety names with patents on methods or plant traits. It is publicly accessible and free of charge.
• In the field of patent protection specifically for arable crops, the digital licensing platform Agricultural Crop Licensing Platform (ACLP) makes patents easy to find and inventions accessible even to small breeders. With just a few clicks, a company can request a license under fair (FRAND) conditions via the platform and then apply the technology to its own breeding work.
• In the vegetable seed sector, family-run and large companies together created the International Licensing Platform Vegetable (ILP-Vegetable) with the same goal. This simplified access to licenses makes it possible to boost innovation, build on the technologies of others, and at the same time secure their return on investment through licensing fees. Our society depends on this.