GM-free Scotland: Gene-edited crops: controlling, unjustifiable and unnecessary

July 2022

Governments are being persuasively lobbied by the biotech industry to rubber-stamp gene-edited crops with claims that they are democratising, sustainable and necessary.

Democratising?

The inventor of the most popular gene-editing device, 'CRISPR' [1], described it as a 'democratising' tool because it's cheap and easy to use. In theory, this makes it accessible to any researcher or small-scale enterprise wanting to latch onto the gene-editing bandwagon.

CRISPR might indeed have levelled the technology up if it had not been patented.

"Patenting gives the patent owners exclusive rights to a certain technology or technique for twenty years. The owners become the gatekeepers of the technology and its output. Others are either banned from using the same technology, or must pay royalties and follow strict restrictions ... The patenting of genetic engineering techniques (such as CRISPR) usually refers not just to the technology itself but also to the seeds and often also products using that technology, as well as all following generations that are derived from it."

(Friends of the Earth Europe)

CRISPR, in all its multiple variants and applications, is tied up in scores of patents, most of which have been bought by one biotech company, Corteva (formerly DowDuPont). Before researchers or small companies can use CRISPR, they must apply to the patent-holder for a licence.

Industry is only too happy to let smaller enterprises do all the legwork of creating new gene-edited products. But then, to cash in on their invention, a licence to market the product is needed, and that comes with a hefty fee. The end-result is that the little guys end up partnering or being bought up by Big Biotech. This business model funnels all gene-edited products into the hands of a very few companies.

CRISPR seems to be the ideal tool to promote and maintain a sort of biotech industry dictatorship.

'Sustainable'?

You can be certain that any high-tech patented agri-product will be replaced by another, fancier, high-tech patented product at least every 20 years (the life-span of the patent).

History suggests patented agri-products will be aimed at the lucrative industrial-scale end of the market, with consequent narrowing of the seed varieties available, and a reduction in the genetic diversity of crops on which sustainability hinges. 'Industrial-scale' also suggests gene-edited crops will be just as environmentally-unfriendly, agri-chemical dependent, soil-degrading, and unsustainable as their monoculture predecessors. 'Sustainability' is a great buzz-word, but no one's coming up with any science to show just how and why gene-edited crops should qualify as 'sustainable'.

" Solutions to protect sustainable and fair farming cannot be bought from mega-corporations."
" ... science shows us time and time again that a fair and sustainable food system means moving away from industrial-scale farming and monocultures, towards crop diversification, biodiversity, and more efficient use of land and natural resources."
"We know how to fix the world's broken food system. We need agroecology, to respect and promote biodiversity, and centre crop resilience and knowledge-sharing. We need a system that places diversity, fairness, and balance with nature at its core."
(Friends of the Earth Europe)

'Necessary'?

In the three years to 2021, the big agribusiness and biotech companies spent over 3.5 million euros lobbying the EU alone. This investment is vanishingly small compared with the profits anticipated from unregulated gene-edited crops.

The only thing gene-edited crops are 'necessary' for is the corporate bottom line.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Do some lobbying of your own: demand NO patents on life; NO patents on food; and NO novel foods without long-term monitoring and long-term safety testing using up-to-date analytical procedures, to protect the consumer, the environment and agriculture.

Background

[1] CRISPR/Cas9 GENE EDITING - March 2016

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