Post-Brexit Britain ponders break from EU GMO, gene-editing restrictions, embracing US model

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Image: Brightley/geograph.org.uk

With so much focus and attention on Brexit, there’s another ‘B’ word that has been fretted over for decades, causing much division across Europe – and that’s ‘biotechnology’ …. However, farmers and growers in the US have been embracing and relying on advancements in new breeding technologies for almost 40 years and there is great frustration felt by the US towards the UK’s resistance to embracing this technology.

The Scottish Farmer visited Wisconsin’s Crop Innovation Center, meeting with Mike Peterson, the associate director on site, who explained that in the early 1980s his scientists were heavily involved in biotechnology ….

[T]here remains huge skepticism in the UK and wider EU over biotechnology and Mr Peterson explained what he thought it would take to convince the public to get on board.

“Maybe it will require a scientist to do something that has a broad impact on people, animals or the environment that says ‘Wow! We don’t care how you did this, but it has such an impact for greater good that it changes people’s minds’ …. [I]t is time for the UK to renew their decisions over this,” he urged.

Read full, original article: Advances in biotechnology that are shaping US farming

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