‘A scalpel not a blunderbuss’

Just as scientists were holding out hope of using new methods to develop plants more tolerant to extremes of heat as a partial solution to global warming, the EU this week ruled that new techniques such as gene editing should fall under the same restrictions as transgenic genetically modified organisms (GMOS).

In the early stages of genetic manipulation genes had been introduced to plants from different species – but recent refinements of GM techniques have given scientists the ability to switch on and off individual genes already present in a plant’s genetic code.

Comparing this to using a scalpel rather than a blunderbuss, scientists had hope that the new techniques would offer plant breeders and others working in the field a quicker means of reaching a breeding goals which might take many decades using expensive and timeconsuming conventional techniques.

However this week the European Court of Justice ruled that gene-edited crops should be regulated in the same way as conventionally genetically modified organisms. This means that GMO legislation which came into effect in 2001 to regulate the planting and sale of such crops in the EU will now include those produced by means such as gene editing - sinking hopes that they would benefit from a more relaxed attitude.

The European farming union’s umbrella group, Copa, said that it regretted that such an approach was being taken to what they described as a safe technique which could knock years off breeding programmes: “EU farmers are facing many challenges like extreme weather conditions and price volatility and therefore they need the availability of improved breeding techniques.”

And scientists warned that companies investing in gene editing and other such techniques were now likely to move somewhere else, along with the anyresearchersworkingin the field.