GMOs Archives

After the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling that organisms obtained by new plant breeding techniques (NBTs) should, in principle, fall under the GMO Directive, the Council of the EU has requested a study from the Commission to clarify the situation. But what this means in practice remains unclear.

The question of whether the UK will open its doors to GMOs after Brexit has become more pertinent after EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told MEPs on Tuesday (26 November) that in order to secure a trade agreement, the UK would have to agree to maintain a ‘level playing field’ and not undercut EU regulation.

It is much easier for larger companies to implement new GM legislation, but it's the smaller ones that are most affected by the recent gene-editing ruling, the chair of the agriculture committee (AGRI) MEP, Norbert Lins, told EURACTIV.com at the sidelines of a recent plant breeding conference.

According to the UN, the amount of food produced globally needs to double to feed a rising world population. Policymakers are poring over ways to ensure the sustainability of food systems while emerging new technologies, promising to tackle climate change, still face resistance.

In the next five years, no alternative to glyphosate is going to “magically” appear in the market,  Dr Bob Reiter, a high-ranking official from Bayer, told EURACTIV.com, referring to the controversial herbicide that has been the subject of heated debates across Europe.

Large areas of forest are being cleared worldwide for the agricultural industry. Although the EU requires its contracting partners to protect the environment,  it lacks the means for enforcement. Environmentalists and the European Parliament see an urgent need for action. EURACTIV Germany reports.

A group of concerned investors has examined the sustainability of the world's largest fattening farms and dairy factories that supply the global food industry. And the results aren't mouth-watering, EURACTIV Germany reports.

Fires that consume the Amazon rainforest are often started by farmers who are attempting to meet the growing demand for soybeans. Now, France wants to convince its European partners of the EU's potential role as a leader on the plant protein market. EURACTIV France reports.

Any attempt to exclude the so-called new plant breeding techniques from the GMO legislation would deal a severe blow to consumers, farmers and processors, according to the EU organic farmers’ movement (IFOAM).

Eyeing a quick trade deal with the United States after Brexit, UK's new Prime Minister Boris Johnson has tried to revive discussions over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

The French parliament is supposed to ratify the Canada-EU free trade agreement (CETA) on Tuesday (23 July), but the pending ratification is generating a great deal of opposition in the country. EURACTIV France reports.

There's a lot of misinformation and misplaced facts which have distorted the debate about the recently concluded Mercosur trade deal, EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan has said.

While France is challenging the meat quotas provided for in the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, it plans to ratify the EU-Canada free trade agreement (CETA), which has been criticised by French beef producers. EURACTIV France reports.

The rise of Green parties in the last EU elections has raised eyebrows in Brussels, where agriculture stakeholders try to find out what is next in the debate about the future of EU farming.

If we’re going to feed the planet sustainably by the middle of the century, the food has to come in much larger volumes from Asia and Africa, told EURACTIV.com in an interview Simon Winter, head of Syngenta Foundation.

A number of breeding companies have promised to relocate their advanced mutagenesis breeding programmes outside Europe and others will follow if nothing is done to change EU rules, Garlich von Essen, the secretary-general of the European Seed Association (ESA), told …

The Netherlands and Estonia are leading a coalition of 14 EU member states calling on the next European Commission to update EU GMO laws with regard to so-called new plant breeding techniques (NPBTs).

The EU executive has already prepared the ground for a new initiative on gene editing to overhaul the current GMO legislation, EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan has said.

The Dutch government has launched a new vision for the country’s agriculture, which prioritises the protection of natural resources and the reduction of the sector's environmental impact.

Europe is a “technology-free zone” when it comes to agriculture and it will pay the price for that, US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has said, criticising the EU for ignoring science on new technologies in farming.

The world is in constant need of more food and new genetic engineering methods such as the CRISPR gene editing method offer a solution. However, these remain contested, EURACTIV Germany reports.

An EU Court decision that confirmed that new plant breeding techniques fall under Genetically Modified legislation has generated more reaction and more discussion than “we would have ever anticipated”.

The European governments have to decide whether science or politics are applied when it comes to issues such as new plant breeding techniques (NPBTs), EU's Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan said.

French authorities on Tuesday (15 January) banned the sale of a form of controversial weed-killer Roundup following a court ruling that regulators failed to take safety concerns into account when clearing the widely used herbicide.