CANCELLED: What are the benefits for consumers and society of GE crops?

A number of examples can now be given on new GE crops with health benefits, environmental profile, improved food security and/or climate adaptation. They are all, however, developed and brought to the market outside the EU.

Is this hesitant, or rather profoundly negative, situation in the EU about to change? The Finnish Green Party may have shown the way out of this in early December, 2022, when the party council approved an updated agricultural political program, which states that breeding methods using genetic technology should be regulated in the same way as traditional breeding methods, such as mutation breeding with irradiation or chemicals. “It’s completely silly that EU legislation treats gene scissors more strictly than seed irradiation”, the chair of the Green Youth and initiator of the new position Jami Haavisto stated. The EU Commission is expected to present a revised regulation of genetically modified plants in spring 2023 during the Swedish presidency. This will be followed by discussions and negotiations between Member States and in the EU Parliament.

Professor Pamela Ronald, UC Davis, newly elected international fellow of KSLA, will participate in the discussion moderated by Annika Åhnberg, project leader of KSLA’s project the Plant Node. The webcast discussion is yet another activity within the Plant Node.

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Link to KSLA podcast on GMO with Professor Pamela Ronald.