Magazine

Volume 10 Issue 3 – Cracking the Tombstone

The long-awaited draft regulation for new genomic techniques (NGTs) is out. Almost five years after we thought the European Court of Justice carried EU plant breeding innovation to the grave, the EU Commission published its proposal for this regulation. We now have at least an idea of where we’re heading on this contentious topic. However, there is a huge risk that this (again) becomes politicised. NGO’s will likely make the regulatory process so incredibly complex and expensive that only those with the deepest pockets will be able to afford to create new and better varieties with gene-editing. Isn’t it better to have a wide variety of organizations that can help mitigate climate change and population increase by creating better and climate-proof varieties? Let’s make sure they can, and let’s not block this opportunity. We need all the help we can get.