Super crops are coming: Is Europe ready for a new generation of gene-edited plants?

Brussels is finalizing a law to legalize new gene-editing technologies for crops across the European Union.

The EU’s ultra-restrictive GMO regulation, which predates newer technologies, sets extremely high hurdles for growing genetically engineered crops and allows EU countries to ban them even after they have been proven to be safe.

The new law aims to cut red tape and allow easier market access for plants grown with “new genomic techniques” (NGTs), such as CRISPR-Cas9, which target specific genes without necessarily introducing genetic material from outside the breeders’ gene pool.

The rules are being pushed by multinationals such as Bayer, Syngenta and Corteva, which together control the lion’s share of the plant breeding sector, as well as a host of smaller companies, scientists and farmers’ groups such as Copa-Cogeca.

They argue that the EU risks falling behind the rest of the world in using new crops with special traits that can make them more nutritious, efficient and better adapted to a changing climate.

Pitted against them are green lawmakers, environmental advocacy groups, organic and small farmers, and more than 400,000 EU citizens who have signed a petition against deregulating what they call “new GMOs.”

These groups say the rules will further tighten the grip of the handful of multinationals, allowing them to claim patents on crops that could have been obtained through conventional breeding methods, while threatening non-GM and organic production. They also argue that because NGTs have only been around for just over a decade, questions remain about their safety.

According to a leaked draft, EU countries will no longer be able to ban the cultivation of NGT crops.

The law simplifies rules even more for a sub-group of NGT crops that are deemed equivalent to crops obtained by traditional breeding techniques. The obligation to label foods as “GMO” will no longer apply to these “conventional-like” plants, and they won’t be subject to risk assessment by food safety regulators.

An earlier draft of the law had a carve-out for crops engineered to tolerate herbicides — which would still have been subject to the stricter GMO rules. However, a newer draft no longer makes such a distinction.

The European Commission is due to unveil the proposed law on gene-edited crops on Wednesday, as part of the latest package of measures under its Green Deal environment and sustainability agenda. This will include a new law on soil health, revisions of the food waste and textiles aspects in the EU Waste Framework Directive, and legislation on seeds and other plant and forest reproductive material.