Which NGT plants should be considered equivalent to conventionally bred plants, and be exempted from risk assessment, monitoring and labelling? Whilst trilogue negotiators have agreed on criteria to ascertain this equivalence, new scientific evidence shows that these are not fit-for-purpose. If applied, the criteria would leave huge loopholes for releasing NGT plants even if they show characteristics that are new to nature and may pose substantial risks for health and the environment. This would jeopardize the potential contribution of NGT plants to sustainability, and may irreversibly damage biodiversity. Furthermore, the introduction of poorly tested plants into the breeders gene pool can also endanger the future of European plant breeding.
The current proposal does not consider that recombinant enzymatic mutagens such as CRISPR/Cas result in biological effects that often are largely different to those caused by conventional breeding. Likewise, it ignores that the relevant differences are mostly independent from the overall number of mutations.
Our speakers will present new and compelling evidence which shows that different causes of mutations can lead to different outcomes. These differences are not only decisive for the expectations in regard to plant breeding innovation, but also for future regulation of NGT plants.
A proposal will be made how to bring the current text in line with current science, whilst keeping a tiered approach for the risk assessment of NGT plants.
Wednesday, 19 November | 15:00–16:30 CEST | webinar