NIAB has welcomed approval by both Houses of Parliament of a Statutory Instrument which will make it easier to conduct field trial research involving plants produced by new genetic technologies, such as gene editing. The Statutory Instrument cleared its final hurdle in the House of Lords late last night, having already been approved by a clear majority in the Commons.
According to NIAB chief executive Professor Mario Caccamo, gene editing offers a potentially transformative research tool and plant breeding technique which enables the same type of genetic changes selected for in traditional plant breeding, but is much more precise and efficient.
Small but important step
“This Statutory Instrument marks a small but important step towards aligning our regulations with other parts of the world – such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Argentina, Brazil and the US – where simple gene edited plants are not regulated as GMOs.
“Adopting a more science-based and proportionate regulatory approach will help unlock the UK’s global leadership in plant genetics, fostering a research environment that encourages innovation in agriculture to address the most pressing challenges of today – helping farmers grow crops that are more nutritious, more resilient to climate change and less reliant on pesticides or fertilisers.
“NIAB has been using gene editing experimentally in a variety of crops, including wheat, barley, rice and strawberries, for several years. But because of the difficulties and costs of testing these novel crops in the field, we have been unable to progress them beyond laboratory and glasshouse experimentation to evaluation in the field. The measures introduced by this Statutory Instrument will make a big difference to prospects for research at NIAB and other research organisations,” he said.
Professor Caccamo pointed to six current NIAB research projects – both in-house and in collaboration with other partners – which stand to benefit immediately from more streamlined and proportionate regulatory oversight:
Resistance to fungal disease (Stagonospora nodorum) in wheat
- Flowering time variation in strawberry
- Root architecture traits in durum wheat
- Enhanced nutrient and water use efficiency traits in wheat
- Microbial symbiosis in rice
- Coeliac-safe wheat.
He added that greater access to gene editing would give a welcome boost to NIAB’s plans for a genetics and pre-breeding programme in pulse crops such as peas, beans and soya, to help unlock their potential as a home-grown protein source with benefits for sustainable farming, healthy eating and climate change. “The focus for gene editing research at NIAB is to help develop crops and farming systems which are less dependent on chemical pesticides and fertilisers, and which reduce the climate change impact of agriculture. These are all important objectives shared widely across the political spectrum for which new breeding technologies can offer tangible solutions,” said Professor Caccamo.
