Government consults on gene editing for UK farms to tackle ‘challenges of our age’

Move comes as agriculture ministers urge EU to roll back regulation on scientific breakthrough

Technologies including CRISPR, which won last year’s Nobel prize for Chemistry, could be used on both crops and livestock (PA)

The government will consider the use of cutting edge biotechnology that could see the genes in crops and farm animals altered to promote better health and environmental sustainability.

Environment secretary George Eustice is set to launch a consultation on gene editing for food in the UK, taking advantage of emerging technologies that rapidly speed up the process of selective breeding undertaken by farmers since the dawn of agriculture.

Scientific breakthroughs in genetic manipulation have already been deployed in some countries including Japan, where a breed of tomato with five times the regular amount of an amino acid linked to lowering blood pressure has been made available to the public.

The consultation marks a new era of policy making for the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) after Brexit, having traditionally found itself as one of the government departments most encumbered by EU regulations.

Steps towards using gene editing technologies were curtailed by the European Courts of Justice in 2018, which decided to regulate the approach in the same way as the more controversial practice of genetic modification.

The European Commission has since been under increasing pressure from agriculture ministers across the continent to reconsider the ruling, with a review due in April next year.

Speaking to the online Oxford Farming Conference, Mr Eustice will say: “Gene editing has the ability to harness the genetic resources that mother nature has provided in order to tackle the challenges of our age.

“This includes breeding crops that perform better, reducing costs to farmers and impacts on the environment, and helping us all adapt to the challenges of climate change.

“Its potential was blocked by a European Court of Justice ruling in 2018 which is flawed and stifling to scientific progress.

“Now that we have left the EU, we are free to make coherent policy decisions based on science and evidence. That begins with this consultation.”

Unlike genetic modification, which adds pre-existing genes from one species and adds them to another, gene editing technologies allow scientists to change traits that already exist in the DNA of living organisms.

Government experts believe the technology could be deployed to solve a number of agricultural issues - including the creation of disease resistant crops and improvements to animal health and welfare.

Environmental issues could also be addressed by creating plants that use up less land to allow greater space for biodiversity-friendly rewilding initiatives. Meanwhile climate change resistant crops could help food supplies weather changes brought on by rising global temperatures.

Defra’s chief scientific adviser Professor Gideon Henderson told The Independent developments with technologies including CRISPR, a gene editing approach that won the Nobel prize last year, had been behind the move to launch the consultation.

“It’s a relatively new technology - although it was developed over a longer period, it’s only in the last eight years that its really been matured” he said. “To some extent that’s the change that has motivated what we’re launching today - but of course it takes a while to get from a scientific discovery to the realisation of its potential for use in the food system.”

He added that the government had been “keen to see a revisiting” of the decision made by the European courts of Justice on the regulation of GE products, but had “been unable to do that until we were outside of the EU”.

“Governmental interest in this stems back to 2018 and the European court consideration of this issue where there was already pretty clear scientific evidence of the substantial benefits of gene editing in the food system, and the UK government and other European governments were actually quite positive about allowing more use of it.”

If carried through into the market, genetically edited crops and livestock are expected to continue to be subject to stringent health and welfare restrictions.

Professor Robin May, the Food Standards Agency’s Chief Scientific Advisor, said: “The UK prides itself in having the very highest standards of food safety, and there are strict controls on GM crops, seeds and food which the FSA will continue to apply moving forward.

“As with all novel foods, GE foods will only be permitted to be marketed if they are judged to not present a risk to health, not to mislead consumers, and not have lower nutritional value than existing equivalent foods.

“We will continue to put the consumer first and be transparent and open in our decision-making. Any possible change would be based on an appropriate risk assessment that looks at the best available science.”