Dale also managed to deflect the most important point made throughout the whole day, which came from an ex-Monsanto employee. She strongly advised the commission to go to industry scientists when seeking the best advice. He then questioned whether genomics and marker assisted breeding was still biotechnology. Anne Bradley clarified this point and said that GM technology is biotechnology and marker assisted breeding using genomics is biotechnology too. The Monsanto scientists are right, GM is an obsolete practice nowadays.
Genomics is much less risky.
By using marker-assisted breeding, genes of interest can be tracked as they are passed on in successive generations, speeding up breeding programmes considerably. Genetic instability renders them too risky economically and it is time to back off and move on. Genomics is the only way forward for plant biotechnology. If the commission is to be of any value, then it must come to terms with this and stop the trials, which are a drain on public resources as well as hazardous. Among other things, it must arrange 'clean up' operations to decontaminate affected land.