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On Friday, March 14, 2025, the Polish NGT proposal ST-6426/25 was adopted by a qualified majority by the Council of the EU (COR). This is a further step towards a regulation for applications of new genomic techniques in plants. The trilogue procedure between the Commission, the EU Parliament and the Council can now finally begin. But there are still major hurdles to overcome. The individual proposals contain some very different points (labeling, risk assessment, patenting, etc.). The process will certainly drag on for a long time and ultimately the EU Parliament will also have to approve a newly negotiated NGT compromise. 

The Society is now supporting young researchers with travel grants on application. Further information can be found on the corresponding page. 

Title: Sustainable crop protection with RNA sprays - reduction through innovation

An interview with Prof. Dr. Gabriele Krczal

More about this in the News section. 

Title: New genomic techniques - Should we use them and should they go?

A discussion with Prof. Dr. Gabriele Krczal; Prof. Dr. Holger Puchta and Dr. Tobias Brügmann

More about this in the News section. 

In the series Genome Editing -WieWasWozu? by Sabine Schuh there is a new podcast on the status of the discussion on the regulation of the new genomic techniques with Klaus-Dieter Jany. It's best to listen in.

This week, the EU Commission published the results of the second consultation on the regulation of plants derived from new genomic techniques. The consultation was part of the Commission's initiative to establish new legislation for plants produced by targeted mutagenesis.

Here it provides a general overview of the results of the consultation, a breakdown of country participation, stakeholder feedback and industry feedback. (Ares (2022) 6404775). It also lists the contributions from the feedback and the 141 documents attached to the contributions.

Since August 2009 there has been a "Ohne Gentechnik" label in Germany. Many consumers assume that food bearing this label has not come into contact with genetic engineering. However, this is not the case and thus suggests a situation that does not exist. The claim "Ohne Gentechnik" may be used if the food and the food ingredients used are not genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and have not been produced from GMOs. In the food control practice of the Laender, however, a tolerance threshold of 1 gram per kilogram of genetically modified components related to the food or food ingredient is accepted, in addition to the detection limit in the analysis. Furthermore, for foods of animal origin that are to be labelled "Ohne Gentechnik" (without genetic engineering), there is no ban on feeding genetically modified feed to the respective animals, but only a certain period of time before the respective food is produced during which no genetically modified feed may be fed.

The petition demands that the labelling of foodstuffs with the label "without genetic engineering" (§ 3a para. 1 sentence 2 EGGenTDurchfG) be supplemented with the clear indication that this indication does not guarantee that the goods do not actually contain any genetically influenced or genetically produced components.

The EU-SAGE database represents state-of-the-art scientific evidence of worldwide genome editing applications in crops for agricultural production. It contains currently more than 500 entries, and the database will be frequently updated with the latest scientific studies. More details under News.

Detailed informations you will find in the NEWS section.

Detailed informations you will find in the NEWS section.