UK to relax law on gene-edited food in post-Brexit change from EU

Adam Vaughan is a writer.

One of the first big divergences between the European Union and the UK is the law that will allow the sale of food that has been altered to improve human health and the environment.

The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill will allow crops that have had their genome edited to be treated differently in England from genetically-modified organisms. When the UK left the EU, there was a ban on GE crops, but if the law is passed, they could be grown and sold in England. They can be sold in Wales and Scotland, but not in Northern Ireland, as it is still subject to some EU rules.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has a chief scientific adviser who says that gene editing tools can mimic natural breeding and generate changes that are desirable for one reason or another.

This week, it was revealed that a tomato had been edited to make it a rich source of vitamins. Other uses for the technology include making more resilient to climate change, and creating crops resistant to diseases so farmers can use less pesticides.

The vast majority of the public in the UK are against the rule change. However, to date there has been no major backlash like the one against the genetically modified foods, where activists ripped out crops in field trials more than two decades ago.

There are differing accounts of when gene-edited food might be in shops. George Eustice is the environment minister. In the next four or five years, I anticipate seeing a slew of potential new products arriving.

New Scientist asked the UK's major supermarkets if they would be selling gene-edited food, but none of them were willing to say yes.

Only crops with genes that could be produced using traditional plant breeding will be allowed under the proposed law. An expert committee that advises Eustice, ACRE, will decide if products meet the criteria or not.

The proposed rule changes will only apply to crops once they become law. Secondary legislation, which does not require parliamentary scrutiny, could be given the go-ahead for gene-editing in livestock later.