An expert opinion on the risks of new GM plants from the French National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES) has finally been published after delays led to repeated accusations of censorship. Its devastating findings threaten to derail the attempts to weaken the regulations around new GM plants. In the newly published report, ANSES calls for new GM plants to be assessed for health and environmental risks on a case-by-case basis. It says it is "important" to set up a monitoring plan after each market launch, both for the environmental impact of these new GMOs and their socio-economic effects. The ANSES report's authors carried out around ten case studies (rice with reduced height, wheat with lower gluten content, herbicide-tolerant potato, grapevine resistant to grey rot, tomato with high amino acid content, etc.) and considered the possible risks that these NGT plants (plants produced by new genomic techniques, like CRISPR/Cas) pose to health and the environment. The group of scientists noted that "certain potential risks appear repeatedly in these case studies" and that "These include risks linked to unexpected changes in the composition of the plant, which could give rise to nutritional, allergenicity or toxicity problems, or medium- and long-term environmental risks, such as the risk of gene flow from edited plants to compatible wild or cultivated populations." GMWatch

 

 

Public seed breeders, often academics who work to help farmers and gardeners, are rapidly disappearing. All the while, commercial breeders with patented, expensive seeds are consolidating. Farmers want their crops to succeed, and seeds that go through the breeding process can become more hardy to weather or pests. But the lack of diversity in commercial seed options and the dwindling number of public breeders leave farmers with fewer choices — and they’re paying more. Seed prices rose 700% over the last two decades for GM seeds, and around 200% from non-GM seeds. Farmers aren’t the only group with fewer options here. Because private sector breeding often results in patents, public breeders are unable to experiment with most seeds a private breeder produces — leaving some wary. “The privatisation of actual genetic traits is really troubling,” said Chris Smith, executive director of the Utopian Project, a nonprofit that focuses on crop diversity in the food and farm system. “I should be allowed to work with purple carrot genetics without worrying about being sued. And that’s not our current reality, which is really scary to me.” Ambrook Research

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible by readers’ donations. Please support our work with a one-off or regular donation. Thank you!