Some of the key technologies used to engineer plants by introducing genes from another species were invented at European universities, yet in 2001 the European Union effectively prohibited the growing of GM plants in its fields. The move has technologically weakened Europe’s agriculture sector and driven science talent to other countries.
So it was welcome news earlier this month when the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, formally proposed a long-awaited new law to govern the use of new genomic techniques (NGTs).
Although there is much to celebrate in the new law, it illogically excludes all NGTs from organic agriculture. Category 1 NGT plants will essentially be defined as conventional crops for non-organic farms, but GM crops for organic farms. There is no scientific basis for this, especially given that the commission concedes that it can be impossible to differentiate between such plants and their conventionally bred counterparts. This also means that the commission’s plan to label all seeds and plant reproductive material using or derived from NGTs would be nearly impossible to enforce.
Critics will counter that organic farmers and consumers do not want to grow or eat gene-edited plants. But although members of some organic groups oppose CRISPR modification, others, such as Urs Niggli, president of the Institute of Agroecology in Switzerland, see value in NGTs. The proposed move would block their ability to use the techniques. It is worrying that the commission proposes to increase organic farming to cover a quarter of European farmland by 2030 under its Farm to Fork strategy while limiting innovation in organic breeding.
