Labour ministers have been accused of “unleashing a GMO free-for-all” in the food and farming industry as they gear up to lay new legislation.
The government has published plans for new secondary legislation that will expand the powers of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, originally proposed by the previous Conservative government in a post-Brexit move to regain regulatory control from the EU.
Defra’s new draft for the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025 was published Tuesday night. It will seek to amend the original act, which was passed in 2023, in a bid to reduce red tape and encourage investment in the agritech sector.
It followed an announcement last October by food security and farming minister Daniel Zeichner that new legislation would go further in enabling the widespread adoption of precision breeding technology to increase food production, reduce costs to farmers and allow drought and disease-resistant crops to be grown.
Now that the regulations have been tabled, the draft act is expected to be signed into law within the usual five to seven-week period.
However, campaigners have warned that the proposed amendment “dismantles key safeguards such as labelling and traceability for genetically engineered” organisms – also known as ‘precision bred organisms’ (PBOs) – and “raises serious concerns about consumer choice, food safety and agricultural independence as well as being a dramatic shift from Labour’s previous position”.
The civil society group Beyond GM claims Labour’s bill is not robust enough in terms of consumer protection, with loose traceability and labelling requirements.
It argues that developers of GMO food and feed “will be allowed to self-certify the food and environmental safety of their PBO organisms”, which it says will let the majority of those products “enter the market without any further oversight under the new self-certification system”.
The campaign group also warned that, under the new law, British farmers risk being undercut by PBO food and feed imports produced to even lower standards than those required in the UK.
Read more: Is genetic crop engineering the key to climate-resilient agriculture or a risky gamble?
Beyond GM director Pat Thomas said: “The Genetic Technology Act is shoddy piece of legislation that is a fundamental breach of public trust in the UK farming and food system and a significant step backwards for consumer rights.
“By stripping away essential labelling and traceability, it leaves consumers uninformed, the large majority of non-GMO farming and food businesses in the UK exposed to unforeseen risks including financial and reputational loss and, potentially, a competitive disadvantage.”
But the government has repeatedly claimed that the new act is underpinned by extensive expert and scientific advice and that it comes with robust enough measures through the applications and approvals processes.
Defra has said the easing of current bureaucracy requirements will allow innovative products to be commercialised in years instead of decades.
A Defra spokesperson argued the Precision Breeding Act “enables the development of precision breeding, not genetic modification”.
“This allows for the development of crops that are more nutritious, resistant to pests and disease, resilient to climate change and more beneficial to the environment.
“Scientific advice shows that precision breeding is no more dangerous than traditional breeding, and we are putting in place measures to ensure regulatory oversight and transparency.”
Prior to Brexit, the UK followed EU regulations that classified gene-edited organisms as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
After leaving the bloc, the UK government sought to reform those rules in order to bring further investment and innovation into the agritech sector.
While in opposition, Labour MPs and peers tabled multiple amendments – rejected by the Conservative government – to improve and strengthen the legislation, and also launched repeated parliamentary challenges to the act, condemning its lack of regulatory oversight.
Back in 2022, Zeichner himself – then shadow agriculture minister – led opposition to the draft act, warning that Conservatives had opted for “a short-term quick fix” while failing to acknowledge “risks we may not fully understand”.
His stance has since changed, with the farming minister claiming at the World Agritech conference last October that using technologies like gene editing on plants, precision breeding would enable the development of crops that were more nutritious, resistant to pests and disease, resilient to climate change and more beneficial to the environment.
“Precision breeding technologies, like gene editing, provide the opportunity to really transform the sector by making the breeding process more efficient and precise – it really has the potential to be a key technology for economic growth, food security and sustainability,” Zeichner said.
Read more: Precision Breeding bill can’t be used as sticking plaster solution for food security
Thomas dubbed Labour’s support for the legislative package written under the previous Conservative government as “bizarre and inexplicable” and said the party’s policy shift marked “the abandonment of principles the party vigorously defended just months ago”.
“The speed and completeness of Labour’s reversal suggests either that its previous opposition was mere performance politics, or that the party has capitulated to the kind of corporate capture it once stood against,” said Thomas.
Precision-bred products have already started to undergo research trials, including tomatoes with high levels of vitamin D and sugar beet that are less reliant on pesticides.
The new legislation will allow greater rollout of these trials and simplify the process for investment and authorisation, Defra previously said.
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