The EU’s policy on GMO is extremely strict and prevents new GMO crops from being authorized. The policy is based on arguments about the risk and unnaturalness of GMO plants – but these arguments cannot justify the restrictive regulation, three researchers conclude in a new study in the journal Transgenic Research. They also conclude that the use of GMO plants is consistent with the principles of organic farming.
[According to University of Copenhagen researcher Andreas Christiansen:] “One of the arguments is that the more changes human beings have made to a plant, the more unnatural it is. This makes a GMO more unnatural in the sense that it has been subjected to at least one more change than the conventionally bred plant upon which it is based. The conventionally bred plant, conversely, is much more unnatural than its wild ancestor, and has mutated so many times that it may in some cases be difficult to see any relation between to two.“It is, in other words, really difficult to construct a solid argument to the effect that the distinction between natural and unnatural can warrant stricter regulation of GMO’s.”
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