If Philippe Roch, Director of the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, has his way, it will be something of a selling point to say that consumers can be assured that all produce that comes out of Switzerland has absolutely not been genetically tampered with. Many Europeans are already on record as opposed to the technology surrounding genetic modification. They think that meddling with the genetic make-up of plants or animals to produce the leanest pig or the plumpest tomatoes is unsafe and unnecessary. They simply do not want it. The US is more liberal in this area.
Genetic modification is a way of adding genes to give the choicest traits to an animal or plant.
It means that farmers can grow juicy tomatoes which are resistant to insects, fungus and other pests without the use of pesticides, or breed pigs with less fat and more lean meat, if that is what the market demands. Much of Europe finds all this too futuristic and plain scary. Roch said he is going to be pushing for some revision of Switzerland's existing legislation, which he said is too lax when it comes to these matters. Because the technology is relatively new, there is much that is still not properly defined. Roch said that, with animals especially, one should consider the integrity of the beast.