Food research given EUR 800m to 2006

Date: 11/09/03

By Karen Carstens

THE mad cow disease crisis and subsequent food scares have prompted an EU-level rethink of how to go about funding food-related research.

Instead of the traditional 'farm to fork' approach, with a heavy emphasis on individual projects focusing on specific sectors, the European Commission's research directorate has whipped up a new strategy that promotes studies involving a wider range of scientific and policymaking actors.

A first batch has just been approved, and several more are set to follow over the next three years to the total tune of some l800 million.

"New farming and food production methods potentially bring greater benefits to our citizens, but at the same time we must safeguard against any possible risks to human health," Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin cautions.

"These first research projects will not only play a key role in improving the quality of life for people in Europe, but also in helping shape related EU policies."

As one DG Research official puts it, the motto of these large-scale projects could be summed up in two words: "consumer first".

"This has nothing to do with traditional food and agriculture research," he said, with its sectoral approach to, for instance, "cereals, cows or milk".

Instead, it takes as a starting point a consumer protection issue, such as last year's acrylamide scare on the possible dangers of foods such as crisps and chips fried at high temperatures, and goes "backwards" from there to reveal the root cause of the problem and suggest solutions.

A fresh influx of Commission cash for these fledgling food research efforts has lured researchers to compete for the funds, and contracts for a first batch of big projects have just been granted.

Officially laid out at l685 million, the funds are expected - after next year's enlargement - to rise to some l800 million, with more eastern European scientists plugging in to the EU-wide research networks.

Moreover, since no more than half of all funds are allowed to come from the Commission's coffers for any project it supports, the actual figure is closer to €1.6 billion.

(Researchers must drum up the remaining funds from their respective governments or other sources.)

The funds fall under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), launched last year and set to run through 2006, with an overall budget of €17.5 billion.

For the first year of FP6, a total of 36 projects and research networks have been shortlisted from some 200 applicants to receive €166 million in funding.

While most are centred in the member states, 17% involve candidate countries and third countries, including Russia and China, and countries already associated with FP6, such as Norway and Israel.

The projects and networks, some of which will receive up to EUR 17 million each, will tackle consumer-oriented issues such as food-related diseases and allergies, the impact of food on health, environmentally friendly production methods and environmental health risks.

The ink should be dry on the contracts for the projects by the end of the year, according to DG Research officials.

Examples include one project featuring 29 participants and focusing on the prevention and treatment of prion diseases, which include mad cow disease, and a 48-participant project on animal welfare for improved food quality that aims to establish "a strong society-science dialogue".

Another project, composed of 27 participants, focuses on allergies and asthma, which have been on the rise among children in particular in recent years.

It aims to bring together multi-disciplinary teams of researchers focusing on their causes, which include the environment (pollution), nutrition, lifestyle, infections and genetic susceptibility.

The influences of nutrition and lifestyle on healthy ageing and the prevention and control of food-borne diseases known as zoonoses are just two examples of other projects receiving funds.

According to Commission officials, research along the lines of this new 'fork to farm' approach is not really being carried out en masse in the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration has the kind of 100% consumer confidence that is sadly "lacking in Europe", as one official put it.

"But we are hoping that now, especially through the new European Food Safety Authority, we can build that kind of trust in Europe, too," he said.

In the US, he added, research is much more focused on boosting food production and nutrition.

"Usually in Europe we are seen as ten years behind the US in research terms," the official said, adding that Washington has looked to Brussels in recent years for guidelines on - and the results of - European research into BSE.

"But this is one area where we are probably more advanced."