The Scientist - USA (2021-02)

VOL. 35 ISSUE 2 | THE SCIENTIST 49

READING FRAMES

Scientifically groundless regulations could undercut the potential of

gene-edited crops, much as they have with GMOs.

BY ROBERT PAARLBERG

W

hen it comes to modern

agricultural biotechnology,

Europe’s caution has been

slowing progress for more than two decades.

It started in the 1990s, when Europe began

rejecting crops modified using recombinant

DNA, or DNA from other species—crops

branded as genetically modified organisms

(GMOs). Now it is doing the same for gene-

edited crops improved using CRISPR.

European scientists have objected to this

new blockage, but they are not the only ones

paying a price.

Using CRISPR, researchers are now

working to make crop plants that have

higher yields, resist disease or stress, or are

tastier, more nutritious, or more convenient

than cconventionally bred varieties. As

farmers seek to adapt to climate change,

gene editing could become an even more

valuable tool in agriculture—if regulators

will allow it.

Decades ago, it was transgenic

modification that seemed poised to

help increase drought tolerance, disease

resistance, and crop yields, and to curtail

insecticide use. But consumers in Europe

were scared away from the resulting GMO

foods by activist organizations, while

governments stifled the products with strict

regulation; most farmers there have never

planted them. GMO consumer foods are

also not imported into Europe, due to a

burdensome tracing rule that requires all

operators in the marketplace to maintain,

for five years, a record of every single

GMO they handled, where it came from,

and where it went. Rather than take on

this logistical nightmare, food companies

in Europe reformulated their products

completely away from GMO ingredients,

and those exporting to Europe now do

the same or plant no GMOs at all. In the

US, where GMO regulations are more

permissive, farmers have planted GMO

cotton, plus GMO corn and soybeans

(mostly for animal feed and auto fuel), but

they voluntarily avoid GMO wheat, rice,

and potato, partly for fear of encountering

commercial rejections in Europe.

As I discuss in my new book, Resetting

the Table, Europe’s policies ignore a consen-

sus among science academies around the

world—including in Europe—that GMO

crops pose no new risks either to human

health or to the environment. Even the

European Commission concurs with this

view, concluding in a 2010 analysis that

“biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are

not per se more risky than e.g. conventional

plant breeding technologies.”

Now Europe’s rejection of new

agricultural biotechnology is being repeated

for gene-edited crops. First reported in

2012, CRISPR should have been less

controversial than transgenic work because

it does not rely on bringing in genes from

unrelated species, and it closely resembles

the natural process of genetic mutation.

The EU’s own advocate general offered

a preliminary nonbinding opinion that

CRISPR crops should not fall under the

strict regulatory requirements of Europe’s

GMO Directive, but the European Court of

Justice in Luxembourg (the EU equivalent

of the US Supreme Court) concluded in

2018 that gene-edited organisms should be

regulated like GMOs.

This ruling hit European crop scientists

hard. The European Academies Science

Advisory Council (EASAC) called the

decision a “setback for cutting-edge

science and innovation in the EU.” In

October 2020, the European Federation

of Academies of Sciences and Humanities

said crops improved through “targeted

genome edits, which do not add foreign

DNA” were no more dangerous to human

health or the environment than crops

developed through classical breeding.

If the EU does not modify its GMO

Directive to make more room for gene-

edited crops, European regulations will

again begin constraining a new farming

technology worldwide, especially in

developing countries that produce for the

European market. EASAC emphasized

the potential for damage to developing

countries that “stand to benefit most from

crops that better withstand the devastating

effects of climate change.”

At a time when progressive Europeans,

alongside Americans, have been telling

the world to “follow the science” on

climate change, and on COVID-19, it is

disappointing to see the same principle not

applied to crop biotechnology. J

Robert Paarlberg is an associate in the

Sustainability Science Program at the

Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Read an excerpt of Resetting the Table:

Straight Talk About the Food We Grow

and Eat at the-scientist.com.

Knopf, February 2021

Europe Is Sinking Biotech—Again