‘GM animals are the future’
GENETICALLY modified animals could be sold in the UK after Brexit, Michael Gove has announced.
While admitting the science was “in its infancy” and that its use would raise “political and moral questions”, the Environment Secretary said that “biotech changes” were coming that would “challenge us to think about the future”.
Gene editing could be embraced to create “more valuable livestock”, he suggested. And Mr Gove also revealed that the Government intends to create a new “gold-standard” for food labelling to signify British quality after Brexit.
He made the claims as he announced plans to reward farmers who open up the countryside for public access and who enhance the natural environment once the UK has pulled away from the European Union.
Outlining his plans for a “green Brexit”, Mr Gove suggested the UK
would have the opportunity to take advantage of new technologies with the potential to dramatically change the way the nation produces food.
In a speech to the Oxford Farming Conference, he said: “These technological breakthroughs raise political and moral questions as we consider how we deal with the transformation of a huge range of existing jobs.
“And alongside these changes in the world of information technology there are biotech changes coming which also challenge us to think about the future, and how best to shape it. Gene editing technology could help us to remove vulnerabilities to illness, develop higher yielding crops or more valuable livestock, indeed potentially even allow mankind to conquer the diseases to which we are vulnerable.”
Mr Gove said gene-editing, a form of genetic engineering involving the removal of parts of an organism’s DNA, could allow farmers to “accelerate the process of breeding and evolution” to create a better quality of livestock.
“I alluded to the fact that gene editing in the future could provide all sorts of opportunities,” he said during a question-and-answer session following his speech in Oxford.
“The science is still in its infancy but I do think it’s important that we regard gene-editing as a means of science helping us to do faster what farmers have been doing for generations, which is essentially accelerate the process of breeding and evolution.
“I think we should have an open mind about that technology and not allow debates from the past to influence how we look at that technology.” He said that when people buy British produce “they’re buying food which is guaranteed to be high quality” and that the Government could do more to help underwrite that reputation.
He said: “Which is why I want us, outside the EU, to develop new approaches to food labelling. Not just badging food properly as British, but also creating a new gold-standard metric for food and farming quality.”
At the moment, he said, “there’s still no single, scaled, measure”.
Such a scheme outside the EU could establish a “world-leading” measure of farm and food quality, he added.
Ted Mckinney, trade undersecretary for agriculture, said that Mr Gove had privately assured American officials that he would draw a line under the chlorinated chicken row.
Mr Gove had previously ruled out allowing chlorinated chicken to be imported under any post-brexit trade deal with the US because of food standards concerns.
But Mr Mckinney told Bloomberg: “We hold our food safety and environment and animal welfare standards up against the UK any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”