Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

“My Ministers will encourage agricultural and scientific innovation at home. Legislation will unlock the potential of new technologies to promote sustainable and efficient farming and food production.”

The purpose of the Bill is to:

● Remove unnecessary barriers inherited from the EU to enable the development and marketing of precision bred plants and animals, which will drive economic growth and position the UK as the leading country in which to invest in agri-food research and innovation.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

● Enabling precision breeding technologies to improve the sustainability, resilience, and productivity of agricultural systems. Technologies such as gene editing have the potential to increase disease resistance in crops, which can reduce pesticide use, lower costs to farmers and increase food production.

● Unlocking innovation to help us cement our place as a science superpower, and to help meet the ambitions in the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.

The main elements of the Bill are:

● Creating a new, simpler regulatory regime for precision bred plants and animals that have genetic changes that could have arisen through traditional breeding or natural processes. No changes will be made to the regulation of animals until animal welfare is safeguarded.

● Introducing two notification systems for research and marketing purposes where breeders and researchers will need to notify Defra of precision bred organisms.

The information collected on precision bred organisms will be published on a public register.

● Establishing a new science-based authorisation process for food and feed products developed using precision bred organisms.

Territorial extent and application

● The Bill will extend to England and Wales, but apply to England only.

Key facts

● Legislation for genetically modified organisms was produced 30 years ago and has not kept pace with our knowledge of precision breeding technologies, such as gene editing. In 2018, the European Court of Justice ruled that the definition of a genetically modified organism covers all gene edited organisms. This means that all gene edited organisms, including those that could have been produced by traditional breeding methods, need to be fully authorised.

● Since 2018, around 40 per cent of small businesses and 33 per cent of larger companies involved in plant breeding in Europe have stopped or reduced research and development activities relating to precision breeding technologies.

● Globally, between 20 per cent and 40 per cent of all crops grown are lost to pests and diseases, representing a significant waste of land use and environmentally costly agricultural inputs. Precision breeding is key to improve crop resistance to pests and diseases through precision breeding technologies will have a range of benefits. For example:

o Disease resistance: Virus Yellows are a group of viruses that can cause yield losses of up to 50 per cent in sugar beet and as a result pesticide is applied to control the disease. A UK Research and Innovation funded study has identified several promising sources of genetic resistance. Using gene editing to give resistance to Virus Yellows would reduce the need for pesticides, helping to protect the environment, increase food production and reduce costs to farmer;

o Climate resilience: Developing wheat that is resilient to climate change will help to increase food production from a crop which 2.5 billion people depend on globally. Researchers at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have used gene editing techniques to identify a key gene in wheat that is responsible for maintaining 50 per cent of yield. This discovery presents an exciting opportunity to identify variations of the gene that can give wheat varieties yield resilience to climate change; and

o Public health: Researchers at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire are testing a wheat that has been gene edited to have lower levels of the amino acid asparagine. When certain food products such as potatoes, cereals and coffee are heated to a high temperature, a probable cancer-causing compound called acrylamide is formed from asparagine. The use of gene editing could help reduce the risk of acrylamide formation, which could have benefits for public health and the safe manufacturing of food products.