At a time when European agriculture must tackle the challenges of climate change, food security and international competitiveness, new genomic techniques (NGTs) represent a major opportunity for our continent. MR Members of Parliament will vote with conviction in favour of the text resulting from the trilogue on NGTs, so as to finally give the European Union a modern framework based on science and innovation.
Contrary to a widely held belief, NGTs are not transgenic GMOs as developed in the 1990s. They allow extremely precise genetic modifications to be made, without necessarily introducing DNA from another species. In many cases, the traits obtained could occur naturally or be achieved through conventional breeding, albeit after many years of work. Nature itself constantly modifies the genome of plants. In a wheat field, thousands of mutations arise spontaneously as a result of biological mechanisms and the environment. NGTs simply make it possible to reproduce, in a targeted and rapid way, mutations that could occur naturally.
“The debate on patentability must not be used as a pretext to block innovation. European law is clear: what exists in nature cannot be patented as such. Intellectual property issues fall under a specific legal framework that can be adapted by lawmakers without calling into question the development of NGTs. Rejecting these technologies will not make existing patents disappear; it will simply deprive public researchers, seed SMEs and European farmers of tools already used by their competitors around the world,” explains Benoît Cassart, MEP and farmer.
“The benefits of NGTs are considerable. They make it possible to develop crops that are more resistant to drought, disease and pests, to reduce agricultural losses, to limit the use of plant protection products and to strengthen the resilience of our food systems in the face of climate change. While Europe hesitates, the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Japan and Australia are already moving ahead with the use of these technologies. Our continent cannot afford to fall further behind. This situation is all the more paradoxical given that the European Union imports large quantities of soybeans and maize from genetically modified crops grown abroad every year, while denying its own farmers access to certain innovations. We cannot keep importing the innovation we refuse to produce ourselves,” he added.
It is also paradoxical that Europe remains so cautious about a scientific revolution whose foundations were developed in Germany, thanks to the work of Emmanuelle Charpentier, a French researcher, and Jennifer Doudna, an American researcher, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discoveries on genome editing.
“For the MR, the issue is not choosing between competitiveness and sustainability. The challenge is to reconcile both. Europe must trust its research, its scientists, its farmers and its capacity for innovation,” concluded Benoît Cassart.
MR Members of Parliament voted this Wednesday in favour of the compromise resulting from the trilogue, in order to finally enable the authorisation and roll-out of new genomic techniques within the European Union.