28/June/22

 

The UK government’s draft Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill would remove a whole class of genetically modified plants and livestock animals, which it calls “precision bred organisms”, from the safeguards provided by the UK’s existing GMO regulations. The Bill assumes, without proof and contrary to much existing evidence, that some GMOs could have resulted from “traditional” or “natural” processes and therefore are safe and do not need to be subjected to safety testing or labelling. A new legal and scientific briefing highlights serious problems with the Bill as it stands. It shows that the unacceptably broad definition of a “precision bred organism” given in the Bill threatens to unleash GMOs containing novel, radical, and potentially hazardous genetic changes into our food and fields, without regard to the risks they might pose to our health and the environment. And because they won't be labelled, consumers and farmers won't be able to avoid them. GMWatch

 

 

The US Food and Drug Administration concluded a review of Argentine biotechnology firm Bioceres' GMO wheat without further questions, a "key step" to commercialising it in the United States, the company said. While corn and soy crops used predominantly to feed livestock are commonly planted with GMO seeds, consumers have long opposed GMO wheat for human consumption. Reuters; comment by GMWatch

 

 

The Bangladesh National Technical Committee on Crop Biotechnology (BNTCCB) of the Ministry of Agriculture at a meeting on 16 June 2022, gave the green signal to two Bt cotton varieties for final approval from the National Committee on Biosafety of the Ministry of Environment (MoE). The MoE is authorised to approve field cultivation of genetically modified crops. Farida Akhter of the NGO UBINIG writes that this is "alarming" news, given the crop's failure in India. The Business Standard

 

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