Many courts around the world have issued judicial opinions about agricultural biotechnology. … In chronological order of issuing the opinion, these seven jurisdictions are New Zealand, the European Union, Kenya, Ghana, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United States. Each of these opinions decided whether modern techniques of molecular biology would be allowed or disallowed for crop breeding and crop improvement within that jurisdiction.
In these legal proceedings, the opponents of agricultural biotechnology exhibit cynicism tied to their implacable opposition. From this author’s perspective, their cynicism is unmoored from facts, science, truth, and morality. Several examples from the litigation provide evidence of this cynicism.
In the litigation in Kenya, the petitioners (opponents of agricultural biotechnology) attacked the Executive Order of October 2022 lifting a ban on cultivation of agricultural biotechnology crops. The ban originated with a prior Executive Order issued on 12 November 2012 that had asserted concerns for human health as justification for the summary action. The Executive Order of 2012 based its concerns upon a 2012 published study by Séralini, E. and others [Law Society, 2023, 31–36 of Judgment]. Within days of the publication of the Séralini study, many scientists criticized the study for its methodology, its data interpretation, and its conclusions. By September and October of 2012, the controversy about the Séralini study was widely reported (Independent Science News).
Thus, prior to the Executive Order 2012 in November 2012, the Kenyan Executive knew or should have known of the controversy about the Séralini study. As time passed, many scientists thoroughly refuted the Séralini study (FCT March, 2013; Arjó et al., 2013; Coumoul et al., 2018; Admin, 2018). The publisher retracted the study (Elsevier, 2013). In 2012, the Kenyan Executive summarily entered the 2012 Order without trusting the Kenyan regulatory agencies carefully to consider and assess the implications of the Séralini study for the regulation of agricultural biotechnology in Kenya. Rather, the Executive Order 2012 hobbled the Kenyan regulatory agencies making them relatively inactive for 10 years, until the Executive Order 2022, despite the valid criticisms and retraction of the Séralini study.
In the Law Society litigation, the petitioners opposed to agricultural biotechnology alleged that the Executive lifting of the ban in October 2022 was done illegally because it was done in a summary manner. The High Court E&L Judge rejected this allegation and remarked:
“[250] As to whether there was public participation before the Cabinet Dispatch of October 2022, I have not been shown any law or authority that requires the Cabinet to engage the public before arriving at its decisions. In any event, there was no public participation before the ban of GMOs was imposed by the Cabinet in 2012.” [Law Society, 2023]
As the quotation from the opinion of the High Court E&L clearly implies, the petitioners against the Executive Order 2022 were not opposed to summary action, but only summary action that did not align with their opposition to agricultural biotechnology and their opposition to a robustly functioning Kenyan regulatory system.
In August 2024, the Court of Appeal of the Philippines amended its April 2024 decision. The Court did so in response to motions for reconsideration. MASIPAG and Greenpeace requested reconsideration giving the following explanation to the Court of Appeals:
“The petitioners [MASIPAG and Greenpeace] pray that this Court modify Item (8) of the (of the April 2024 judgment) on the ground of newly discovered evidence. They submitted an online BusinessWorld Article … on 29 April 2024 entitled, “How may the Philippines be affected by the Court of Appeals 2024 Writ of Kalikasan?” explaining that the Philippines imports genetically modified organisms (GMOS) such as yellow corn and soya meal, which are the most important feed ingredients in animal feeds. Since these animal feeds comprise 60%–70% of the total cost of pork, poultry meat and egg production, the Court’s directive to ban GMO importation would have grave and adverse economic effect on the country’s swine and poultry industries.”
The reader should note that the immediately preceding quotation is from a MASIPAG and Greenpeace document asking the Court of Appeals to reconsider Item 8 of the April 2024 order. As previously explained in the summary of the Filipino litigation, the Court of Appeal did decide to strike Item 8 from the final August 2024 Order. Why did MASIPAG and Greenpeace undermine their own implacable opposition to genetically modified crops, foods, and feeds in the Philippines by asking for the deletion of Item 8? One can properly ask: did MASIPAG and Greenpeace change their legal stance due to newly discovered evidence, as the quotation says? Information about the massive quantity of imported genetically modified corn and genetically modified soybean, as the feed supply for the livestock industry of the Philippines, was widely and easily known prior to the April 2024 Order.
Or, one can properly ask: did MASIPAG and Greenpeace reconsider because of cynical political calculations about the likely societal uproar from Filipinos who, if Item 8 were imposed, would be deprived of meat supplies and be forced to pay more for the lessened supply? The record of the litigation provides no answer to these two “one-can-properly-ask” questions. What the record does show is that by their request for reconsideration to delete Item 8 from the final August 2024 Order, MASIPAG and Greenpeace were more concerned about feeding livestock than feeding Filipinos. By contrast, MASIPAG and Greenpeace sought and won a court order that deprived Filipinos especially subsistence farmers and the urban poor–those who would most benefit from Golden Rice and Bt eggplant, – of nutritious food. The cynicism of MASIPAG and Greenpeace, at least to this author, seems obvious: feeding livestock is preferred to feeding Filipino people.
Share this article
The Court of Appeals did modify its April 2024 Order by deleting Item 8 from its August 2024 Order. The Court reasoned that the Item 8 ban on importation of food and feed raised significant due process concerns because the importers of these foodstuffs and feedstuffs were not parties to the litigation.
However, when the Court of Appeals ruled for MASIPAG and Greenpeace to delete Item 8 in August 2024, the Court did so without discussing or even citing any constitutional provisions or statutes of the Philippines or any international standards that proclaim human welfare as a worthwhile and co-equal value. The Court of Appeals did not seriously consider that the Writ of Kalikasan (the Writ of Nature) might not be an absolute, predominant right in the Philippines to the detriment of human welfare. The Court of Appeals simply gave no consideration to balancing co-equal values. By endorsing the ban on Golden Rice and Bt eggplant, the Court of Appeals endorsed the legal argument that the Filipino environment is preferred to human welfare of the Filipino people.
No wonder that by May 2025 179 Nobel Laureates have signed a letter, drafted in 2016, protesting Greenpeace and MASIPAG and their campaign against agricultural biotechnology, especially Golden Rice. Further, the Laureates called for governments and international governance organizations to reject these campaigns against agricultural biotechnology. As the Laureates state: “Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped.”
History will judge whether the opponents or the proponents of agricultural biotechnology better protected human health and the environment. What future historians will write and conclude is unknown and unknowable in May 2025. What is known and predictable is that the pace of scientific discovery and the expansion of scientific knowledge, related to agricultural biotechnology, will not slow. Recent examples include a new gene-editing system from Chinese scientists (Chinese scientists, 2025), detailed plant genomes (Plant Genomes, 2025), gene-edited tilapia from Brazil (Brazilian fish, 2025), plant-based foods with animal genes from Argentina (Pork-Infused Soybeans, 2025), gene-transfer from hornworts (an algae) to food crops for CO2 efficiency (Funny Little Plant, 2025).
What can also be predicted is that groups that oppose agricultural science and innovation, that mistrust regulatory agencies regarding biotechnology, that employ the precautionary principle to ban breeding techniques and their products, and that place livestock and the environment (as an abstract entity, rather than actual environments) over the welfare of people will file lawsuits.
If this survey of seven jurisdictions and litigation is any guide, these lawsuits may often find receptive judges who make choices about the facts, laws, regulations, and interpretations that deny these scientific achievements to farmers and plant scientists. This survey of litigation in seven jurisdictions presents clear evidence that judges in their choices can be significant impediments to the adoption of agricultural biotechnology. This survey also presents clear evidence that judges in their choices, alternatively, can meaningfully allow a way forward for agricultural biotechnology.
