26/May/22

 

The UK government's "Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill", which drastically weakens safety controls around gene-edited GMOs, was published yesterday. GMWatch will publish its comments on the bill soon. Meanwhile, below are some initial reactions and comments on the bill. We apologise that this issue of the Daily Digest is focused on the UK, but caution our readers worldwide that the UK rush to deregulate new GM technologies will likely serve as a blueprint for similar processes in other countries and regions.

 

 

An article for the Daily Mail on the new bill (see above) gets several things wrong, but does accurately reflect the government's intention to avoid labelling these GM products and the public alarm at this prospect. GMWatch comment on article in the Daily Mail

 

 

The RSPCA has expressed serious welfare and ethical concerns over the UK government's bill. The charity's head of public affairs, David Bowles, said the introduction of the bill was 'incredibly disheartening and frustrating' from an animal welfare perspective. He said there were "more ethical and humane ways" to solve issues in the farming industry "without pushing farm animals even further towards their physical limits". FarmingUK

 

 

An article in The Grocer reports criticism of the bill from both growers and campaigners, who are cautioning against the rapid adoption of new gene-editing technology. The article quotes Philip Morley, technical executive officer of the British Tomato Growers’ Association, as saying that there had been a lack of consultation with the food sector on the government’s plans – leading to “a disconnect between the scientists, who are doing the research in their labs, and the growers, retailers and consumers”. GMWatch

 

 

The Scottish government has rebuffed the UK government’s attempt to extend new laws on the cultivation of GM crops across the whole of the UK. A spokesperson for the Scottish government said that it would not accept having the provisions of the bill imposed on Scotland. Holyrood

 

 

Beyond GM has revealed the breathtaking lengths the UK government has gone to in order to ignore public opinion on GMOs in farming and the food chain. Documents released by farm ministry Defra, following a freedom of information request by Beyond GM, highlight the extent to which Defra is ignoring and seeking to misrepresent citizens and civil society organisations in the push to deregulate GM technologies. Defra removed from its official analysis more than half (52%) of the responses it received to the public consultation on its gene editing deregulation plans, on the basis that they were linked to campaign organisations. Even with this outrageous culling of responses, 85% of responses to the consultation wanted gene-edited crops, animals and foods to be regulated in the same way as other GMOs. This majority view was ignored by Defra and the government, which chose to focus instead on the less than 1% of responses from vested interests that supported their deregulation agenda. Also, the cache of FOI documents reveals the existence of an internal Defra process described as ‘coding’, in which written responses received during the consultation were analysed by Defra personnel and specially recruited staff to determine how some responses could be downgraded or removed from the final analysis and consultation report. Beyond GM