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HAVBRUK2-Stort program for havbruksforskning

Genome editing - a game-changer in aquaculture: Conditions for social and moral acceptance

Alternative title: Genomredigering som endringsfaktor for akvakultur: Betingelser for sosial og moralsk aksept

Awarded: NOK 9.3 mill.

Fish farming is the most important Norwegian bioeconomy industry, but it is also controversial for ethical and environmental reasons. The basis for this food production is the salmon, an iconic animal in Norwegian culture. One promising approach to solving some of aquaculture?s production challenges, and to ensure higher value creation in aquaculture is using genome-editing techniques such as the CRISPR system. This emerging technology enables rapid and precise changes to the genetic basis of relevant salmon traits. However, unless it is introduced in a socially and morally acceptable way, in accordance with the principles of sustainability, promised improvements and solutions cannot be utilised. This project has aimed to determine the acceptability of genome edited salmon through an empirical ethics approach combining descriptive and normative studies. The project has studied public views on the moral value of salmon and the demands for a sustainable aquaculture industry, as they are expressed in public documents, media and research. Focus group and interview studies of public and stakeholder views has enabled us to determine conditions for social acceptability of using genome editing in salmon farming. Most acceptable employments of the technology, according to our respondents, is protection of wild salmon and animal welfare for farmed salmon. The empirical studies has been combined with academic texts on sustainability, animal and virtue ethics to analyze moral conditions for use of genome editing in aquaculture. The most important findings here are that this technology can provide an important contribution given that it is accompanied with a humble recognition of the limits to human knowledge and respect for the value of nature as something distinc from human creations. This presupposes a clarification of alternative solutions to these problems and a reflection on the context of technology use. The results of the project are relevant for the aquaculture sector, for research on genome editing in animal husbandry, and for regulatory purposes not least in a time of reevaluation of gene technology regulations. One important contribution concerns how to evaluate gene editing of animals, such as the salmon, according to sustainability criteria. In addition, will our results be relevant for academic debates on empirical ethics and animal ethics. Here, the project has contributed mainly to discussions in the tradition following Wittgenstein and within virtue ethics. During the project period, we have published 15 articles in peer-reviewed journals and anthologies, and another article has been accepted for publication, in addition to three articles submitted for peer review. We have had high dissemination activity towards significant stakeholder groups, such as aquaculture interests, as well as towards the general public. In the fourth and final year of the project, one PhD thesis has been submitted and defended and the other is submitted and under review.

The CRISPRsalmon project has had effects in building and consolidating an international European research network in the normative aspects of using genome editing as a contribution to solving central challenges in animal husbandry within a virtue-based animal ethics framework. These collaborations will be extended and further developed in a new project funded by the Research Council of Norway, including the collaborators from CRISPRsalmon as well as other researchers. The publications from the project are still fairly recent or in the pipeline, so it is early to assess the impact of this research, but it has contributed to opening a research field of combining the Wittgensteinian tradition with applied animal ethics and suggested new justifications and approaches to empirical ethics. We expect that the impact on the international applied ethics research will increase in coming years. The project has enabled project participants to build connections with strong research environments within aquaculture and sustainability research that will be significant for the next research project and future research. The publications on sustainability and genome edited fish have already had impact in form of citations in highly relevant journals reaching a broad audience. One of these articles has developed a framework for the assessment of sustainability that can be used for assessment of genome edited salmon with relevance for future requirements connected to sustainability reporting and implementation of the EU Taxonomy. Project participants have presented the project at meetings concerning gene technology regulation in the UK and at EC committees in Brussel. Nationally, the project has had impact in the form of extensive dissemination activity towards the general public and targeted stakeholders, including the aquaculture industry. The collaboration with the Biotechnology Advisory Board has resulted in arrangement of three well-attended open meetings which were streamed and are available as webinars at the Board’s homepage. It is difficult to assess the dissemination impact, but balanced evaluations of genome editing application based in social and ethical acceptability is necessary, and the results of this project represents a significant contribution in that respect. This dissemination work will continue in the coming discussions on reforming the Gene Technology Act and on applications of genome editing to farmed salmon. We expect our project results to have significant impact and be of general interest as genome editing is entering commercial applications. The results will be particularly relevant for the ongoing discussions following policy discussions about reforming gene technology regulations, as there are no other research results from Norway available combining studies of conditions of sustainability, social acceptance and ethical justifiability – key terms in the Gene Technology Act – of this rapidly emerging technology.

Fish farming is the most important Norwegian bioeconomy industry, but it is also controversial for ethical and environmental reasons. The basis for this production of biomass for food is the salmon, an iconic animal in Norwegian culture. One promising approach to solving some of aquaculture’s production challenges, and to ensure higher value creation in aquaculture is using genome-editing techniques such as the CRISPR system. This emerging technology enables rapid and precise changes to the genetic basis of relevant salmon traits. However, unless it is introduced in a socially and morally acceptable way, promised improvements and solutions cannot be utilised. This project aims to determine the acceptability of genome edited salmon through an empirical ethics approach combining descriptive and normative studies. We have set up a relevant interdisciplinary research team supported by a network of national and international experts and industry representatives. The project will identify, by literature review and a foresight exercise with invited experts, the spectrum of present and future possibilities in genome editing salmon, as well as relevant ethical issues in this and other breeding approaches. We will study public views on the moral value of salmon and of human-salmon interactions as it is expressed in public documents, media and research. A focus group and interview study of public and stakeholder views on the acceptability of genome editing salmon will be conducted, in order to determine conditions for social acceptability of using the technology in salmon farming. Finally, an analysis of the moral acceptability will be conducted on the basis of the empirical studies and academic texts on animal and virtue ethics. The study will provide important input for the aquaculture sector, for research on genome editing in animal husbandry, and for regulatory purposes. In addition, it will be relevant for academic debates on empirical ethics and animal ethics.

Publications from Cristin

Funding scheme:

HAVBRUK2-Stort program for havbruksforskning