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If this was the only driver then the logical response wouldn't be a ban but rather more r&d spending to develop European alternatives.

Any European alternative developed would end up banned in the US, the biggest corn market. The US doesn't let people muscle in on its flagship agritech industries.

Europe might be a big enough market to be worth the R&D though - although it doesn't grow anywhere as much corn as we do.

Sure, but licensing/patents are entirely separate from the environment benefits here.

If you say "I'll take the environmental benefits, but pass on the patents/licensing", you're quickly gonna get slapped with sanctions.

So they aren't really seperate.

They're definitely separate issues, but decision makers still need to take both into account.

"It's better for the environment" is a poor excuse when you have angry farmers yelling outside one door, and poor hungry people outside the other.

Just do what European pharmaceutical companies do and make a generic version.