Genetic Technology
(Precision Breeding) Bill
“My Ministers will encourage agricultural and scientific
innovation at home. Legislation will unlock the potential of new
technologies to promote sustainable and efficient farming and
food production.”
The purpose of the Bill is to:
● Remove unnecessary barriers inherited from the EU to enable the
development and marketing of precision bred plants and animals,
which will drive economic growth and position the UK as the
leading country in which to invest in agri-food research and
innovation.
The main benefits of the Bill would be:
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● Enabling precision breeding technologies to improve
the sustainability, resilience, and productivity of
agricultural systems. Technologies such as gene editing have
the potential to increase disease resistance in crops, which
can reduce pesticide use, lower costs to farmers and increase
food production.
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● Unlocking innovation to help us cement our place as a
science superpower, and to help meet the ambitions in the
Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.
The main elements of the Bill are:
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● Creating a new, simpler regulatory regime for
precision bred plants and animals that have genetic changes
that could have arisen through traditional breeding or
natural processes. No changes will be made to the regulation
of animals until animal welfare is safeguarded.
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● Introducing two notification systems for research and
marketing purposes where breeders and researchers will need
to notify Defra of precision bred organisms. The information
collected on precision bred organisms will be published on a
public register.
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● Establishing a new science-based authorisation
process for food and feed products developed using precision
bred organisms.
Territorial extent and application
● The Bill will extend to England and Wales, but apply to England
only.
Key facts
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● Legislation for genetically modified organisms was
produced 30 years ago and has not kept pace with our
knowledge of precision breeding technologies, such as gene
editing. In 2018, the European Court of Justice ruled that
the definition of a genetically modified organism covers all
gene edited organisms. This means that all gene edited
organisms, including those that could have been produced by
traditional breeding methods, need to be fully authorised.
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● Since 2018, around 40 per cent of small businesses
and 33 per cent of larger companies involved in plant
breeding in Europe have stopped or reduced research and
development activities relating to precision breeding
technologies.
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● Globally, between 20 per cent and 40 per cent of all
crops grown are lost to pests and diseases, representing a
significant waste of land use and environmentally costly
agricultural inputs. Precision breeding is key to improve
crop resistance to pests and diseases through precision
breeding technologies will have a range of benefits. For
example:
o Disease resistance: Virus Yellows are a group of viruses
that can cause yield losses of up to 50 per cent in sugar
beet and as a result pesticide is applied to control the
disease. A UK Research and Innovation funded study has
identified several promising sources of genetic resistance.
Using gene editing to give resistance to Virus Yellows would
reduce the need for pesticides, helping to protect the
environment, increase food production and reduce costs to
farmer;
o Climate resilience: Developing wheat that is resilient to
climate change will help to increase food production from a
crop which 2.5 billion people depend on globally. Researchers
at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have used gene editing
techniques to identify a key gene in wheat that is
responsible for maintaining 50 per cent of yield. This
discovery presents an exciting opportunity to identify
variations of the gene that can give wheat varieties yield
resilience to climate change; and
o Public health: Researchers at Rothamsted Research in
Hertfordshire are testing a wheat that has been gene edited
to have lower levels of the amino acid asparagine. When
certain food products such as potatoes, cereals and coffee
are heated to a high temperature, a probable cancer-causing
compound called acrylamide is formed from asparagine. The use
of gene editing could help reduce the risk of acrylamide
formation, which could have benefits for public health and
the safe manufacturing of food products.
