Our Green Week: EU rules for new genetic engineering on the line. What is at stake worldwide?
Channel: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Date: 2023-01-23

Language: english

Panel discussion in cooperation with AbL (German La Via Campesina) and BUND (Friends of the Earth)

Existing genetic engineering laws are currently being weakened worldwide, and in many countries new genetically modified organisms are being promoted in fields and markets with remarkable intensity. At the same time, new genetic engineering techniques such as CRISPR-Cas, while opening up new technical possibilities, are highly controversial due to their potential socioeconomic and ecological risks. It is questionable what role they can play at all in solving the climate as well as the global food crisis. This is because, as before, the new genetic engineering methods are generally closely linked to corporate interests and rigid patents.

In the EU, CRISPR-Cas and Co. are currently still subject to the strict rules of the EU Genetic Engineering Act. This protects organic and conventional agriculture that operates without genetic engineering, and impacts on the environment are contained. But this could also change soon: In Brussels, the European Commission is currently working on a legislative proposal, as a result of which the handling of new genetic engineering could also be much looser here in the EU than it has been up to now. It is feared that this will call into question the achievements of recent decades in terms of consumer protection and sustainability, as well as the approaches to the urgently needed restructuring of agriculture.

What are the experiences in other countries around the world? What does deregulation mean for consumers, the environment and farmers? What ecological risks are associated with new genetic engineering? Is a peasant agriculture based on the freedom from genetic engineering and a precautionary use of our resources still possible?   

Input

- Emmanuel Atamba (via Zoom), Program Coordinator for the Right to Food and Agroecology, Heinrich Böll Foundation Nairobi
- Daniela Wannemacher, Team Leader Land Use at BUND - Ecological risks of new genetic engineering methods - short presentation of a BUND study

Panel discussion

- Bärbel Endraß, Member of the AbL regional board Baden-Württemberg and farmer with her own organic farm in Allgäu
- Markus Wolter, consultant for agriculture and world nutrition at MISEREOR
- Karl Bär, Member of the Bundestag, representative in the agricultural committee for the Bundestag faction of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (requested)

Facilitator: Pia Voelker, staff member for genetic engineering policy at BUND