In ongoing discussions about the regulation of genome edited organisms in the UK and the EU, existing regulation to prevent harm to human and planetary health is often portrayed as the ‘bad guy’ trying to curb progress. What if we look at GMO-regulation in a different way? How to think of and design policy frameworks of care that support people- and earth-centred or agroecological processes of change? Unpacking the narratives that underpin corporate campaigns to deregulate new technologies of genetic engineering, Barbara Van Dyck contributes with this article to our column, Agroecology in Motion: Nourishing Transformation.
Daunting terms and simple solutions
Precision breeding, new genome techniques, new GMOs, hidden GMOs, new breeding techniques, CRISPR/Cas9, mutagenesis … The debate on the regulation of genetic engineering is daunting with terms. The complexity of the science behind these techniques is intimidating. Zinc-finger nucleases, meganucleases techniques, prime editing, cisgenesis, intragenesis or transgenesis, oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis, epigenetic techniques, Agrobacterium mediated techniques…where to start? Meanwhile, the unexplored possibilities of the techniques to intervene in the genetic material of plants, animals and other living organisms appeal to the imagination. One can imagine plants made to guarantee crop yields, even in extreme weather conditions. A few simple interventions in plant crops would make cholesterol-lowering food widely available. Or imagine that plants’ ability to cope with diseases could directly be built into their hereditary material, thanks to targeted genomic interventions.
The fact that these examples sound very familiar is no coincidence. The NGO Corporate Europe Observatory recently revealed how they are the result of a well-crafted and often repeated story as part of a sustained lobby campaign that has succeeded in shaping much of the thinking about new GMOs…
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