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So are these new gene-edited crops still GMOs? A group of experts appointed by the European Commission has been hotly debating this since 2007. The group was expected to issue a legal opinion by the end of 2015, but still hasn’t.
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. . . . Most affected by the Commission’s findings will be scientists and companies who want to grow crops in field trials, and license or commercialize their work in Europe.
That includes Cibus, a San Diego biotech that modifies crops with a combination of the techniques being studied by the Commission. . . .[I]ts future in Europe is uncertain. It paused field trials in the U.K. and Sweden because the Commission asked them to wait for its legal opinion. But Germany, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., Ireland, and Finland have also told Cibus that, in the absence of that opinion, they would not consider the crop to fall under the 2001 rule, according to the company.
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In the interim, regulators in some countries have made up their own minds, making for a messy situation all around. Last year, a German agency decided that CRISPR and other techniques do fall under the 2001 rule — only to be followed by another German agency that arrived at the opposite conclusion. The Swedish Board of Agriculture said in November that it would permit some uses of CRISPR. . . but not others.
Read full, original post: What’s A GMO? The Answer Could Change The Future Of Food In Europe
