‘Farming looks mighty easy when your plough is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.’ Those were the prescient words of US president Dwight Eisenhower. Today, debate about farming has been colonized by environmental activists with little regard for the realities of farming.

In January, the 11th Oxford Real Farming Conference was held just a few days after the Oxford Farming Conference. Ironically, while the Oxford Farming Conference features actual professionals from the farming, biotech and retail sectors, the Real Farming Conference objects to this approach. The ‘Real’ conference was established to fight against ‘industrial’ agriculture. Instead of ‘big business’, it hosts farmers alongside eco-alarmists and the likes of Extinction Rebellion. Extinction Rebellion also protested outside the regular Oxford Farming Conference, dressed in bright red, accusing the attendees of killing the planet.

Many eco-warriors take issue with any farming that is non-organic and, in particular, with the use of pesticides and herbicides. Farmers are using herbicides not to upset activists but in an effort to increase crop yields. These products are necessary and safe. They have been approved by medical agencies, food-safety authorities and governments around the globe.

What’s more, the kind of organic farming favored by environmentalists is actually bad for the environment. As Chris Bullivant explains on CapX, organic farming produces more greenhouse gases than conventional farming – up to 58 per cent more, in fact.

Nevertheless, the Real Farming Conference promoted an ‘organic transition’ away from the use of copper, plastics and ‘other contentious inputs’. Instead of industrial farming, the conference promotes ‘agroecology’ and ‘peasant farming’ – a back-to-basics approach without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, GMOs and herbicides.

An agroecological approach would be a disaster for our food supply. Agroecology researchers themselves admit that this form of agriculture would decrease agricultural production by 35 per cent. But no matter. The activists’ goal is the complete annihilation of conventional intensive farming at any cost.

Modern intensive farming techniques have successfully rid most of our farmland of invasive species and other pests. In the face of this obvious success, the opponents of modern farming have had to stoop to questionable science.At an agroecology conference in Kenya last June, one of the featured speakers was conspiracy theorist Tyrone Hayes. His research gave rise to the conspiracy-monger Alex Jones’s infamous claim that atrazine, a widely used herbicide, ‘turns frogs gay’.

Also promoted as a top-tier speaker was Gilles-Eric Séralini, a French biologist and science correspondent for Le Monde (though he was, in the end, a no-show). Séralini is one of the world’s best-known opponents of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). A major anti-GMO study he authored in 2012 has since been retracted and debunked by four government-funded studies (three by the EU and one by France). The scandal became known as the ‘Seralini Affair’. The case against GMOs is based on pseudoscience, but this does not trouble the agroecology movement.

The unfortunate truth is that these agroecology activists are influential. For instance, the head of the UK Soil Association, Gareth Morgan, is regularly quoted in national newspapers. He is agitating for a ban on all pesticides and fertilizers and wants the government to endorse agroecology. Parliament already has an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology. In 2018, Michael Gove, when he was environment secretary, spoke at the Real Farming Conference.

Farming and our food supply are far too important to be sacrificed to the pet projects of conspiracy theorists and radical environmentalists.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Love or hate it, Brexit offers many opportunities for regulatory overhaul. The recently released UK budget gets rid of the tampon tax, a financial instrument long criticised by the feminist movement (and rightfully so). Another tool of regulation which the European Union has long imposed on Britain should now also be axed: the 2001 directive on genetically modified foods. Especially with the current turbulence looming over financial markets, the UK has an obligation to its citizens to allow for better and cheaper food in the shops. New agricultural technologies can make this a reality.

The directive made genetic engineering for the purpose of agriculture practically illegal. Apart from a set of imports and a very select amount of crops, genetic engineering is itself illegal in the EU. Indeed, the language of the legislation is revealing: by calling these foods “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs) – which is not a scientific description because genetic engineering describes the process, not the end product – the EU showed that its motivations were political, not scientific. Key features stand out in the legislation, for instance in this definition:

“genetically modified organism (GMO)” means an organism, with the exception of human beings, in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination;”

The informed reader might know that crop varieties carrying gene mutations through radiation and chemical treatment would fall under this definition, but they are actually exempt in the same directive. It occurred to the European Union that radioactively treated foods that have existed since the 1950s would be outlawed, and so an exemption was made for this form of mutagenesis. While chemical treatments and radiation are imprecise, newer breeding technologies are not.

And this is where the UK can have an advantage over the sclerotic regulation in the EU. Gene editing, also known as “new breeding technologies (NBT)”, is a newer form of genetic engineering, in which modern technologies (such as gene scissors) are used to edit existing DNA.

Gene editing allows us to either remove, silence or insert genes from within species. This is in contrast to the often criticised transgenesis in which genes of one species are inserted into the DNA of another (hence the slur “Frankenfood”). Gene editing has the potential to make enormous advances for human health and agriculture, through a faster mechanism of editing out undesired genomes. It can be so precise in its genetic engineering, that breeding techniques from the last century appear (and are) random.

We are just at the beginning of discovering precision gene editing but even in its infant stage, it is already the most precise way of eliminating unwanted genes in crops. One example is breeding gluten-free wheat, a blessing for everyone suffering from celiac disease.

In a press release by the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) earlier this month, scientists explain that the current EU rules on genetically modified organisms (GMO) are not fit for purpose anymore. In a court ruling in 2018, the European court of justice had decided that new breeding technologies should be considered as GMOs, and would, therefore, be outlawed in the EU. 

The EASAC explains that current GMO classifications lack a scientific foundation. Robin Fears, head of the EASAC’s biosciences programme explains:

“A lot has happened since the first regulations have been adopted almost 20 years ago. Reform must strengthen the use of scientific evidence and tackle future uncertainties. In parallel, we need a continued and transparent discussion of the critical, including ethical, issues to build trust between scientists and the public.”

As scientists are battling the European Union to change legislation – which is provenly lengthy and hijacked by anti-science campaigners such as Greenpeace – the UK has a unique opportunity to bypass this challenge and scrap the 2001 directive altogether. Westminster could create its own set of rules, allowing for a fast-tracked authorisation process on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to sweeping and unscientific generalisations by Brussels.

In a time of economic uncertainty, genetic engineering gives us the opportunity to make food safer, cheaper and more affordable. Evidence shows that genome editing has benefits for nutrition and productive, low-pesticide and resource-conserving agriculture. If the government seeks to combine its efforts for improved purchase power, while reducing its CO2 emissions and cutting (now necessary) crop protection tools, then it should look to cut red tape on vital agricultural technology.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Ein Gastbeitrag von Fred Roeder, Geschäftsführer des Consumer Choice Center. Ein neuer Bericht der selbsternannten  Journalismusplattform Unearthed des Umweltverbands Greenpeace vermeldet, dass ein Großteil der an Landwirte verkaufte Pestizide hochgefährlich seien. Doch diese Anschuldigungen sind schwer irreführend und können Verbraucher teuer zu stehen kommen.

Das Projekt hat einen Datensatz von Pestizidverkäufen von insgesamt 21 Milliarden Euro gesammelt und verlautbart, ein Drittel aller verkauften Pestizide seien hochgefährlich. Es verwundert nicht, dass Greenpeace sich nach diesem Bericht für weitere Verbote einsetzt.

Doch dieser Bericht krankt gleich an mehreren Stellen. Man muss immer berücksichtigen, dass Greenpeace lediglich ein Netzwerk von Aktivisten ist und keine wissenschaftliche Institution. Die bekannte Umweltorganisation befürwortet rückschrittliche und unwissenschaftliche landwirtschaftliche Methoden, wie die Agrarökologie.

Die Aussage, dass mindestens ein Drittel aller verwendeten Pestizide in der Landwirtschaft hochgefährlich sind ist leider auch nicht wissenschaftlich begründet, sondern lediglich eine polemische Aussage des internationalen Umweltnetzerks, die sich auf einen fraglichen Datensatz des Pesticides Action Networks (PAN) stützt.

Der berüchtigte Datensatz, der diese drastischen Zahlen zeigen soll, beruht zudem nicht auf offiziellen Zahlen der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (in denen Pestizide wie Glyphosat oder Neonikotinoide nicht als hochschädlich eingestuft werden), sondern eigenen Einstufungen des politisch motivierten PAN. Diese Vereinigung ist ein Sprachorgan der Vertreter der Agrarökologie.

So hat PAN Pestizide, die von der Weltgesundheitsorgansisation nicht beanstandet wurden, einfach als unsicher eingestuft und ist so auf diese hohe Anzahl an unsicheren Pestiziden gekommen. Gleichzeitig behaupten Vertreter der Bio-Lobby, schädliche Pestizide wie Kupfer hätten für Menschen „keinerlei Nachteil“.

Wohlfeile Forderungen – Teure Folgen

Unser Eindruck ist, dass sich die Umweltlobby wünscht, nationale Regierungen würden alle von PAN gelisteten Pestizide verbieten. Dies würde Verbraucher teuer zu stehen kommen. Sichere Pestizide machen Ernteerträge deutlich voraussehbarer und reduzieren Lebensmittelpreise.

Wer Pestizide verbieten will, muss auch ehrlich sein und zugeben, dass Essen teurer wird. Ein komplett unbehandelter Apfel hat nur geringe Chancen zu reifen im Vergleich zu einem mit Pestiziden behandelten Apfel. Man muss sich dann nicht wundern, wenn dieser Apfel das Vierfache im Supermarkt kostet.

Es gibt Chemikalien, die schädlich für uns Verbraucher sein können. Aber diese Analyse sollte von Behörden und nicht von Aktivisten durchgeführt werden. Solche Verbote sollten wirklich nur eintreten, wenn unabhängige Wissenschaftler im Auftrag öffentlicher Institutionen  nachweisen, dass diese Chemikalien bei Menschen oder in der Natur nachhaltige Schäden verursachen können. Ideologisch getriebene Verbote in einigen Mitgliedsstaaten der EU haben bereits Hexenjagden gegen komplett sichere Pestizide wie Glyphosat verursacht.

Zudem können solche Verbote Lebensmittel für Verbraucher deutlich verteuern. Verbraucher und Hersteller brauchen Herbizide, um die Ernte vor eindringlichen Spezien zu beschützen. Wer weniger Pestizide und andere Chemikalien verwenden möchte und gleichzeitig die aktuellen Ernten nicht reduzieren will, muss sich aktiv für neue und innovative Methoden wie Gen-Editing aussprechen. Leider lässt die EU solche Methoden bisher nicht wirklich zu.

Letzter Ausweg CRISPR?

Glücklicherweise debattiert die Europäische Kommission das Genscheren-Verfahren CRISPR für Saatgut und andere Produkte langsam aber sicher zu öffnen und dadurch nachhaltig den Einsatz von Pestiziden verringern zu können. Nachhaltig bedeutet, dass die grüne Gentechnik es erlaubt, weniger Chemikalien in der Landwirtschaft einzusetzen – ohne den Ertrag verringern.

Beispiele aus anderen Teilen der Welt zeigen leider auch, dass Landwirte, denen der Einsatz von Pestiziden verboten wird, diese oft auf dem Schwarzmarkt erwerben und deutlich unsicherere Chemikalien verwenden, um Schädlinge von ihren Feldern fernzuhalten. So führt die Anti-Pestizid-Politik zu mehr Gift im Essen.

Statt Landwirte in die Illegalität zu drängen, brauchen wir innovative Methoden, mit denen sie für eine wachsende Weltbevölkerung mehr Lebensmittel mit weniger Chemikalien herstellen können. Unwissenschaftliche Kampagnen helfen hier niemandem. Wir hoffen nun, dass die Europäische Kommission dem Fortschritt die Türen öffnet.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Die Frage, ob Gentechnik eine wunderbare Verheißung moderner Molekularbiologie oder Teufelszeug ist, macht einen grundlegenden Riss durch die grüne Bewegung deutlich. Verbände wie Greenpeace, der Bund des Umwelt- und Naturschutzes, die sogenannten “Friends of the Earth” sowie mehrheitlich die Partei Bündnis 90/die Grünen sind gegen den Einsatz von genmanipuliertem Saatgut. Teile der Grünen Jugend jedoch stellen sich neuerdings auf die Seite des europäischen Bauernverbands sowie der Mehrheit der Gentechnik-Forscher, die sich für den Einsatz stark machen. Die Spaltung der Öko-Bewegung in Gegner und Befürworter der Gentechnik ist aber mehr als eine Detailfrage über das beste Vorgehen in der modernen Landwirtschaft: Hier offenbaren sich zwei Weltbilder innerhalb des ökologischen Denkens, die miteinander kollidieren und nicht vereinbar sind. Entweder nämlich, man glaubt an den technischen Fortschritt, an die Vernunftfähigkeit des Menschen und an die Findigkeit kreativen Unternehmertums oder man sieht das Leben in der Moderne als grundsätzlich negativ an, mit seiner bedrohlichen allmächtigen Technik und seiner ausgedehnten Massenproduktion. Technik oder Verzicht, wird damit zur Zukunftsfrage der jungen Generation, nicht nur in der Klimafrage. Es gibt Hoffnung, dass sich die technikfreundliche, positive Sicht auf die Moderne innerhalb der Grünen durchsetzen könnte.

Hauke Köhn von der Grünen Jugend Hannover brachte im Herbst letzten Jahres einen Antrag bei der Grünen Jugend Niedersachsen zum Erfolg, der sich für die Verwendung der Gentechnik in der Landwirtschaft ausspricht. Der Antrag fordert nichts weniger, als auf wissenschaftlicher Basis anzuerkennen, dass Gentechnik viele Vorteile für die Gesellschaft biete. Die Risiken seien hingegen überschaubar und politisch beherrschbar. Mit dieser Position ist Köhn seither nicht nur beliebt bei seinen Parteigenossen. Wie er gegenüber der “ZEIT” äußerte, habe “bei manchen Grünen-Treffen Eiseskälte geherrscht, wenn das Thema aufkam, bei anderen wurde es hitzig.” Zu tief sitzen die Vorurteile gegenüber der Gentechnik, die NGOs wie Greenpeace seit Jahren systematisch schüren.

Gentechnik habe seine Versprechen „seit jeher gebrochen“, heißt es beispielsweise auf der Internetseite der grünen Friedenswächter. Durch die „Verwendung von genmanipuliertem Saatgut konnten keine Ertragssteigerungen erzielt werden und der Pestizideinsatz steigt mittelfristig sogar an“, heißt es dort. Mit der Redlichkeit dieser Aussagen nehmen es die Aktivisten wohl nicht ganz so genau. Auf den ersten Blick stimmt es zwar: In den meisten Fällen steigert der Einsatz von Gen-Mais nicht die Ernte des Maises. Aber – und das verschweigt Greenpeace seinen Anhängern lieber – es senkt die Kosten für die Maisproduktion erheblich, weil die Pflanzen resistent gegen Schädlinge sind und daher weniger Schädlingsbekämpfungsmittel eingesetzt werden müssen. Der Einsatz von genmanipuliertem Saatgut konnte bisher den Ertrag um bis zu 28% erhöhen und weitere Erfolge sind wahrscheinlich. Genau das passt Greenpeace aber nicht. In einem eigenen Dossier zu dem Thema heißt es, dass „genmanipulierte Pflanzen das Modell der industriellen Landwirtschaft zementieren, das globalen Märkten zwar Güter in großen Mengen liefert, die Weltbevölkerung aber nicht ernähren kann.“

Und genau das ist für Greenpeace des Pudels eigentlicher Kern. Die Landwirtschaft an sich ist böse, weil sie industriell und global agiert. Es stimmt: Unterernährung und Hunger wird es auch mit der Gentechnik noch geben, aber das liegt nicht an der bösen Landwirtschaft, sondern daran, dass Bürgerkriege, korrupte Regime und Unterentwicklung nicht durch Gentechnik allein behoben werden können. Nicht nur in der Frage der Agrarwirtschaft offenbart sich ein unwissenschaftliches Weltbild. Auch in der Frage der Gesundheit und der Risiken der Gentechnik bleiben viele Aktivisten faktenresistent. Greenpeace behauptet etwa in einem düsteren Untertitel zum Thema Gentechnik, dass “[d]er Einsatz der Gentechnik unkalkulierbare Risiken [birgt]. Mensch und Natur dürfen nicht zu Versuchskaninchen der Agrarkonzerne werden.” Die Wissenschaft aber konnte bisher keine dieser angeblich unkalkulierbaren Risiken ausfindig machen.

2010 gab die EU-Kommission ein Kompendium aus über 10 Jahren Forschung heraus, welches zu dem Ergebnis kommt, dass Gentechnik keine nachweisbaren Risiken für die Umwelt in sich trage. Auch in einer Bilanz des deutschen Bildungsministeriums aus dem Jahre 2014, nach 25 Jahren Forschungsarbeit und über 130 Projekten und 300 Millionen Euro geflossenem Steuergeld, heißt es dazu, “dass Gentechnik an sich keine größeren Risiken als konventionelle Methoden der Pflanzenzüchtung birgt.” Doch den Gegnern der Gentechnik können noch so viele Studien vorgelegt werden, belehren lassen sie sich trotzdem nicht.

Wie der Philosoph Stefan Blancke, von der Universität Gent, in einem Interview mit ZDF-Heute treffend feststellte, fällt die Panikmache vor der Gentechnik bei den meisten Menschen deshalb auf fruchtbaren Boden, weil sie Vorurteile und Naturbilder bedient, die uns intuitiv einleuchten, die aber, wissenschaftlich gesehen, weit vor das darwinistische Zeitalter zurückreichen. Die meisten Bürger würden zum Beispiel glauben, “dass alle Organismen eine Art universellen ‚Kern‘ besitzen. Einen ‚Kern‘, der diesen Organismus ausmacht, quasi definiert.“ Und daher würden in einer US-Studie Befragte nicht wissen, ob in eine Tomate implantierte Fisch-DNA die Tomate nach Fisch schmecken lässt. Das ist natürlich Unsinn, wussten aber weniger als 40 Prozent.

Solche Vorurteile führen dann dazu, dass sich knapp 80 Prozent der Deutschen in einer Umfrage des Umweltministeriums aus dem Jahr 2017 ohne erfindliche Gründe gegen die Gentechnik aussprechen. Wenige politische Fragen erreichen solch eindeutige Urteile der Öffentlichkeit. Was gerade bei diesem Thema besorgniserregend ist, da die meisten Befragten offensichtlich wenig bis keine Kenntnisse der Gentechnik besaßen. Zu der Angst, nicht mehr kontrollieren zu können, was wir über Geneingriffe erschaffen, komme, laut Blancke, die Angst hinzu, sich mit Mutter Natur anzulegen. Wir würden immer noch zu einem sogenannten zweckgetriebenen Denken neigen, das allen Naturereignissen eine bestimmte Absicht unterstelle. In dieser Sicht seien Pflanzen dazu da, uns zu ernähren, Regen, um die Erde zu bewässern und Gewitter, um uns zu erschrecken. Blancke dazu: „Gentechnik ist da plötzlich das Böse, das die Pläne von ‚Mutter Natur‘ durchkreuzt. Nicht umsonst gibt es den Begriff ‚Frankenfood‘. Die Botschaft ist klar: Legen wir uns mit ‚Mutter Natur‘ an, rufen wir gewaltige Katastrophen hervor.“

Es ist nur zu hoffen, dass sich die Sicht des 21-Jährigen Junggrünen Hauke Köhn in Zukunft durchsetzt, der in seinem Antrag mutig schreibt: “In jedem Fall können die pauschalen Vorwürfe, die gegenüber der grünen Gentechnik bestehen, nicht aufrechterhalten werden. Es sind durchaus ökologisch nachhaltige GVO vorstellbar, die gegenüber konventionellen Agrarpflanzen große Vorteile hegen.” Ergänzen müsste man noch, dass solche GVO (Gentechnisch veränderte Organismen) nicht nur vorstellbar sind, sondern schon täglich genutzt und weltweit gebraucht werden.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

World-class laboratories have been freed from the dead hand of Brussels regulation

Britain is really good at biology. In physics and chemistry, or painting and music, we have often failed to match the Germans, the French or the Italians. But in the bio-sciences, nobody can equal us. Here’s an astonishing list of firsts that happened on this damp island: William Harvey and the circulation of the blood. Robert Hooke and the cell. Edward Jenner and vaccines. Charles Darwin and natural selection. Alexander Fleming and antibiotics. Francis Crick and James Watson (and Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins) and the structure of DNA. Fred Sanger and DNA sequencing. Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards and the first test-tube baby. Alec Jeffreys and DNA fingerprinting. Ian Wilmut and Dolly the Sheep. The biggest single contribution to the sequencing of the human genome (the Wellcome Trust).

Annoyingly, the exciting new tool of genome editing is the one that got away. The best of the new tools, known as CRISPR, emerged from the work of a Spaniard, Francisco Mojica, who first spotted some odd sequences in a microbe’s genome that seemed to be part of a toolkit for defeating viruses. Then a few years ago French, American, Finnish, Dutch and Chinese scientists turned this insight into a device for neatly snipping out specific sequences of DNA from a genome in any species, opening up the prospect of neatly rewriting DNA to prevent disease or alter crops. Two American universities are squabbling over the patents (and Nobel prize hopes). Further improvements are coming thick and fast.

But we are well placed to catch up with superb labs straining at the leash to apply these new tools. The biggest immediate opportunity is in agriculture, and here leaving the European Union is absolutely key. There is no clearer case of a technology in which we will be held back if we do not break free from the EU approach. It would not be a race to the bottom in terms of safety and environmental standards, but the very opposite: a race to the top.

For example, if we allowed the genetically modified blight-resistant potatoes that have been developed at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norfolk to be grown in fields here in the UK, we would be able to greatly reduce the spraying of fungicides on potato fields, which at present happens up to 15 times a year, harming biodiversity and causing lots of emissions from tractors. That would be a big improvement, not a regression, in environmental terms. But at the moment commercialising the Sainsbury Lab potato is in practice impossible because of onerous EU rules.

Other countries are already dashing ahead with the new technology. Last year a review of the patenting of CRISPR products in agriculture found that, whereas America had taken out 872 patent families and China 858, the European Union had taken out only 194. The gap is growing.

The reason is nothing to do with the quality of research in Europe. It is all about regulation. When genome editing first came along, the European Commission decided to delay for several years making up its mind about how to regulate the release of genome-edited organisms while it waited for the European Court of Justice to decide whether to treat this new technology as if it were like genetic modification (the process invented a generation ago for transferring genes between species) or a form of mutation breeding (the process invented two generations ago for randomly scrambling the genes of plants under gamma rays in the hopes of generating better varieties).

If it was like genetic modification, then it would be subject to draconian rules that amount to a de-facto ban. Nobody even tries to commercialise a GMO crop in Europe any more because you enter a maze of delay, obfuscation, uncertainty, expense and red tape from which you never emerge.

The result is that European agriculture is more dependent on chemical sprays than it would have otherwise been, as shown by research at Gottingen University: on average, GMOs have reduced the application of pesticides to crops wherever they have been grown by 37 per cent. So we have missed out on biological solutions and had to stick with chemical ones instead.

If on the other hand genome editing is like mutation breeding, then you can go ahead and plant a crop straight away here with no restrictions. This is, of course, mad, since mutation breeding is more likely (though still very unlikely) to produce an accidentally harmful result even than GMOs, but it’s an older technique and has been used for much of the food you eat, including organic food, and for some reason nobody at Greenpeace objects.

Genome editing is an even more precise and predictable technique than GMOs. It involves no transfer of foreign DNA and the incision is made at a specific location in a genome, not at random. It is clearly the safest of all these three techniques, and so said the European Court’s advocate general in his advice to the court. But in July 2018 the ECJ, being a political entity, decided otherwise and told the commission what it wanted to hear, that it should treat genome-edited plants and animals as if they were GMOs.

There was fury and dismay throughout the laboratories of Europe. There would have been more in Britain if academics had not feared playing into the hands of Brexiteers while remaining was still a possibility. A Canadian biotech professor tweeted that this was a good day for Canada since it removed a competitor continent from the scene. The absurdity is illustrated by the fact that in some cases it is impossible to distinguish a genome-edited variety from a variety bred by hybridisation or lucky selection with the same trait. Stefan Jansson from Umeå University in Sweden put it like this: “Common sense and scientific logic says that it is impossible to have two identical plants where growth of one is, in reality, forbidden while the other can be grown with no restrictions; how would a court be able to decide if the cultivation was a crime or not?”

Brexit therefore offers a fantastic opportunity to do something no European continental competitor is effectively allowed to do, and that will benefit the environment. We have great laboratories here, in Norwich, Nottingham, Rothamsted and Edinburgh among other places. But the private sector of plant biotechnology is all but extinct in Britain and will take some jump-starting.

Twenty years ago there were 480 full-time equivalent, PhD-level, private sector jobs in agricultural biotechnology in this country. Today there are just ten. That is what has happened to that whole sector in this country as a result of the misinformed and misguided green campaign against GMOs. Until politicians signal a sea change, the private sector will shun the UK’s wonderful labs and the breakthroughs will be applied overseas, if at all.

As a new online tool called the Global Gene Editing Regulation Tracker has shown, America, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Japan and much of the rest of the world are moving towards a nimbler and more rational regulatory approach: namely judging a crop not by the method used to produce it, but by the traits it possesses. If you can make a potato resistant to blight, what matters is whether the potato is safe, not whether it was made by conventional breeding, gamma-ray mutagenesis or genome editing.

In the EU, if you made this potato by gamma-ray mutation breeding, scrambling its DNA at random in a nuclear reactor, the regulations would say: “No problem. Go ahead and plant it.” If you made it by the far more precise method of genome editing, in which you know exactly what you have done and have confined your activities to one tiny bit of DNA, you are plunged into a Kafkaesque labyrinth of regulatory indecision and expense. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, on which I sit, recommended we switch to regulation by trait, a few years back but it was not possible before Brexit.

Genome editing can bring not just environmental benefits but animal welfare benefits too. In 2017, scientists at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh announced that they had genome-edited pigs to protect them against a virus called porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, PRRS. They used CRISPR to cut out a short section from the pig gene that made the protein through which the virus gained access to cell. The change therefore denied the virus entry. They did this without altering the function of the protein made by the gene, so the animal grew up to be normal in every way except that it was immune to the disease.

This means less vaccination, less medication and less suffering. What is not to like? (Incredibly, when I mentioned this case in a speech in the House of Lords, a Green Party peer objected that eradicating a disease that causes suffering in pigs might be a bad thing in case it allows a change in pig husbandry techniques. Even Marie Antoinette was never quite that callous.) But commercialising that animal in the UK is currently all but impossible until we change the rules.

Genome-editing technology could revolutionise conservation as well as agriculture. Looking far ahead into much more speculative science, the same scientists at the Roslin who made the virus-resistant pigs are now looking into how to control grey squirrels not by killing them, as we do now, but by using genome editing to spread infertility infectiously through the population, so that the population slowly declines while squirrels live happily into old age.

This technique, called gene drive, could transform the practice of conservation all around the world, especially the control of invasive alien species — the single greatest cause of extinction among birds and mammals today. We could eliminate the introduced mosquitos on Hawaii whose malaria is slowly exterminating the native honeycreeper birds. We could get rid of the non-native rats and goats on the Galapagos which are destroying the habitat of tortoises and birds.

We could get rid of the signal crayfish from America that have devastated many British rivers. For those who worry that gene drive might run riot, there is a simple answer: it can and will be designed in each case to last for a certain number of generations, not forever. And it will be wholly species-specific, so it cannot affect, say, the native red squirrel.

Still more futuristically, genome editing may one day allow the de-extinction of the great auk and the passenger pigeon. To achieve this, we need to take four steps: to sequence the DNA of an extinct species, which we have done in the case of the great auk; to edit the genome of a closely related species in ​the lab, which is not yet possible but may not be far off as genome editing techniques improve by leaps and bounds; to turn a cell into an adult animal, which is difficult, but possible through primordial germ cell transfer, again pioneered at the Roslin Institute; and to train the adults for living in the wild, which is hard work but possible.

Genome editing is also going to have implications for human medicine. Here the European Union is less of a problem, and home-grown regulation is already in good shape: cautious and sensibly applied under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Britain has already licensed the first laboratory experiments, at the Crick Institute, on the use of genome editing in human embryos, but this is for research into infertility, not for making designer babies.

There is universal agreement that germ-line gene editing to produce human beings with new traits must remain off-limits and be considered in future only for the elimination of severe disease, not for the enhancement of normal talents. This view is shared around the world: the Chinese rogue scientist He Jiankui, who claims he used CRISPR to make two babies HIV-resistant from birth, was sentenced to three years in prison last December.

In practice, fears about designer babies are somewhat exaggerated. The same issue comes up about once a decade with every new breakthrough in biotechnology. It was raised about artificial insemination in the 1970s, about in-vitro fertilisation in the 1980s, about cloning in the 1990s and about gene sequencing in the 2000s. Indeed, it has been possible to choose or selectively implant sperm, eggs and embryos with particular genes for a long time now and yet demand remains stubbornly low.

Most people do not want to use IVF or sperm donation to have the babies of clever or athletic people, as they easily could, but to have their own babies: the technology has been used almost exclusively as a cure for infertility. Indeed, the more we find out about genomes, the harder it becomes to imagine anybody wanting to, let alone being able to, enhance specific traits in future children by fiddling with genes: there are just too many genes, each with only very small effects, interacting with each other in the creation of any particular behaviour or ability.

Imagine walking into a doctor’s clinic and being presented with a catalogue of expensive genetic changes that could be made to your future baby’s genes, each of which might have a tiny and uncertain effect. The truth is most people do not want to have especially clever or sporty offspring: they want children like themselves.

However, in contrast to germ-line gene editing, somatic genome editing will play a large part in medicine. It is already happening, for example in a process known as CAR-T cell therapy, in which an immune cell is genome-edited so that it will attack a specific tumour, then multiplied and injected back into the body as a form of live drug. If we encourage genome editing in Britain we will be in a position to cure some cancers, enhance agricultural yield, improve the nutrient quality of food, protect crops from pests without using chemicals, eradicate animal diseases, enhance animal welfare, encourage biodiversity and maybe bring back the red squirrel. If we do not, then China, America, Japan and Argentina will still push ahead with this technology and will follow their own priorities, leaving us as supplicants to get the technology second-hand.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Devastating locust plague has hit East Africa, with swarms of insects covering an area the size of Moscow. In desperation towards this pest, farmers and police in countries like Kenya and Ethiopia are using every tool available, ranging from pesticides to flamethrowers and even machine guns. Their desperation is real and justified: with large amounts of crops eaten by the hungry insect, the entire region could see a life-threatening food security disaster

The invention of pesticides has solved this problem in practically every other region of the world, and officials should be keen to look to technology, not flamethrowers to deal with this.

These types of pests have previously hit other areas of the world.

In 2015, such a scourge reached Russia, causing the destruction of 10% of its crops after a monstrous attack by thousands of locusts. Standing by their fields, farmers were ruined and desperate. Their losses were enormous. Later, consumers faced rising prices, hitting low-income households the hardest.

Through pesticides, however, modern chemistry has given us the tools to defend ourselves against plagues on our fields and in our cities. Instead of losing a large part of our yields of crops, these products have guaranteed us greater food security. That should be championed.

But in today’s mantra, pesticides are considered undesirable. It goes without saying that a pesticide requires professional and precise use, and certainly not all farmers have been equally rigorous. The general demonisation of all pesticide use has thus failed to deliver an intelligent or even environmentally friendly policy.

Abandoning the use of pesticides completely has ruinous effects.

Over in the Netherlands, the Pest Advice and Knowledge Centre warns in major newspapers that new rat infestations are imminent as the country prepares to restrict the use of rat poison from 2023 onwards. It has already been banned in outdoor areas, but now indoor use will also be banned, as RTL Nieuws reports.

The rat invasion in Paris tells a similar story. In January 2018, the government launched a 1.7 million euro anti-rat campaign to reduce the number of disease-ridden rodents. A total of 4,950 anti-rat operations took place between January 2018 and July 2018 compared to 1,700 the previous year. Not only have these efforts failed, they have also fallen short of appeasing those who desire no human effect on the environment around us. An online petition denouncing the “rat genocide” and calling for an end to the exterminations was widely circulated. It collected 26,000 signatures.

But we cannot allow a rat infestation. If we strive for healthy cities, we cannot have our homes and streets “shared” with rats. Otherwise the consequences of our inaction will lead to considerable health problems. The same applies to other species.

A study by researchers in Biology Letters, including French researcher Céline Bellard PhD, showed in 2016 that alien or invasive species are the “second most common threat” associated with the extinction of animals and wildlife since AD 1500. And for at least three of the five different animal species examined, these invasive species are the number one killer.

This is a significant problem in the European Union. The EU suffers €12 billion worth of damage each year due to the effects of these plagues on human health, damaged infrastructure and agricultural losses.

According to a report from 2015, 354 species are at significant risk, including 229 animals, 124 plants and 1 fungus. Invasive species include Spanish slugs, the bacterium xylella fastidiosa, and the Asian long-horned beetle. The traditional reader will have no direct concept of what they look like, and since there are no domestic equivalents, there will probably be no petition by activists either.

Farmers in Africa should not be scared into giving up all pesticides, as controlled use is essential for a productive agricultural system and a viable ecosystem.

Education is therefore key. Prudence about pesticides cannot and must never become an ideological obsession. Controlled, scientifically based use of pesticides remains an absolute necessity for our farmers and cities. If we fail to understand this crucial fact, we will become our own pest.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Avec toutes les tendances politiques demandant une absence complète de pesticides, rappelons-nous des pestes qu’il faut que nous évitons. Beaucoup de ces pestes représentent de vraies urgences pour notre système alimentaire.

Les espèces invasives sont des plantes et des animaux qui sont amenés dans un nouvel habitat et qui intimident les espèces indigènes au point où beaucoup ne peuvent pas survivre. Elles sont généralement plus robustes, plus exigeantes et se reproduisent beaucoup plus rapidement. Rien de neuf, rien d’inconnu. Il s’avère que le concept d’un fléau d’insectes est même un des symptômes les plus dévastateurs de la colère de Dieu dans la bible.

Dans le livre biblique de l’Exode, le huitième fléau que Yahvé inflige à l’Égypte est celui des sauterelles : “Elles couvraient la surface du sol jusqu’à ce que le sol en soit noirci. Elles dévorèrent toute la verdure du pays et tous les fruits des arbres que la grêle avait laissés. Il ne restait plus de verdure sur aucun arbre ou plante des champs dans tout le pays d’Egypte.”

En 2015, un tel fléau avait atteint la Russie, qui avait enregistré la destruction de 10% des récoltes aprèsune attaque monstrueuse par des milliers de sauterelles. Devant leur champs, des agriculteurs ruinés et désespérés. Leurs pertes sont énormes. Plus tard, des consommateurs confrontés avec des prix à la hausse, effet le plus bouleversant pour les ménages à faible revenu.

Se défendre contre les pestes

A travers les pesticides, la chimie moderne nous a donné les outils pour nous défendre contre les pestes sur nos champs et dans nos villes. Au lieu de perdre une grande partie de nos rendements, comme le souffraient nos ancêtres, ces produits nous ont garantis une plus grande sécurité alimentaire. De nos jours, les pesticides sont considérés comme indésirables. Certes, un produit chimique délicat nécessite une utilisation professionnelle et précise, et certainement pas tous les agriculteurs ont fait preuve de la même rigueur. Ceci dit, la démonisation générale de toute utilisation de pesticide ne revient pas à une politique intelligente ou même bon pour l’environnement.

Aux Pays-Bas, le Centre de connaissances et de conseils sur les animaux nuisibles avertit dans les principaux journaux que de nouvelles infestations de rats sont imminentes alors que le pays s’apprête à restreindre l’utilisation de la mort-aux-rats à partir de 2023. Il a déjà été interdit dans les zones extérieures, mais désormais l’utilisation à l’intérieur sera également interdite, comme l’indiqueRTL Nieuws.

L’invasion des rats à Paris nous en dit des mots. En janvier 2018, le gouvernement avait lancé une campagne anti-rats de 1,7 million d’euros pour réduire le nombre de rongeurs gênants. Un total de 4950 opérations anti-rats ont eu lieu entre janvier 2018 et juillet 2018 contre 1700 l’année précédente. Non seulement ces efforts ne se sont pas prouvés efficaces, ils n’ont pas non plus réussi à apaiser ceux qui désirent aucun effet humain sur l’environnement qui nous entoure. Une pétition en ligne dénonçant le “génocide des rats” et demandait la fin des exterminations. Ellea recueilli 26 000 signatures.

La réalité est aussi gênante que les gênants: nos villes ne sont pas à “partager” avec les rats, car sinon les conséquences de notre inaction mèneront à des problèmes de santé considérables. La même chose s’appliquent à d’autres espèces.

Des dommages annuels d’une valeur de 12 milliards d’euros

Une étude des chercheurs dans Biology Letters, dont la Français Céline Bellard PhD, a montré en 2016 que “les espèces exotiques sont la deuxième menace la plus courante associée aux espèces qui ont complètement disparu depuis l’an 1500”. Ils ajoutent: “Les espèces exotiques sont répertoriées comme ayant contribué à l’extinction de plus de la moitié de toutes les espèces de nos analyses, et de près des deux tiers des vertébrés.”

Dans l’Union européenne, ce problème est important. L’UE subit des dommages annuels d’une valeur de 12 milliards d’euros en raison des effets de ces pestes sur la santé humaine, des infrastructures endommagées et des pertes agricoles. Selonun rapport de l’année 2015, 354 espèces sont ainsi menacées: 229 animaux, 124 plantes et 1 champignon. Les espèces invasives incluent: les limaces espagnoles, la bactérie xylella fastidiosa, ou la longicorne asiatique. Le lecteur traditionnel n’aura aucun concept direct à quoi ils ressemblent, et puisqu’il n’y d’équivalences domestiques, il n’y aura probablement pas de pétition non plus.

La prudence envers les pesticides ne peut et ne doit jamais devenir une obsession idéologique. L’utilisation contrôlée, et scientifiquement basée restent une nécessité absolue pour nos agriculteurs et nos villes. Si nous arrivons pas à comprendre ce fait crucial, nous deviendrons notre propre fléau.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org