Viewpoint: While African nations embrace GM and gene-edited crops to address climate change challenges, EU lags further behind, even as food prices soar

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Credit: Carleton University

While some richer nations dither over how to deal [with biotech farming innovations], scientists in lower and middle income countries are seizing the opportunity to give agriculture a targeted genomic reboot. “It is a great testament to their ingenuity, combined with the acceptance that something needs to be done quickly, that these early developers of gene-editing are not in the resource-rich [global] north,” says Johnathan Napier, a plant biotechnologist at the UK-based agricultural institution Rothamsted Research. In a world where food security can never be taken for granted, that sense of urgency needs to spread.

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EU ministers recognise that treating all genetic technology in the same restrictive way is outdated and voted earlier this month to change the rules, but green-lighting PBOs faces opposition from consumer and environmental advocacy groups, as well as the organic food lobby. All 27 member states would need to approve a wide-ranging reset covering research, field trials, patents and food labelling — a tall order.

Refining and expanding this technology seems a sensible insurance policy in uncertain times. Even in well-fed Europe, economists talk about heatflation, the spectre of rising food prices as heatwaves and drought dent supply, increase spoilage and reduce nutritional value.

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