The European Commission has opened a public consultation on New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) for crops and other plants. Views are invited from civil society, public authorities, business operators, and all others.
Food sustainability will be a driving force in reaching the goals of the European Green Deal, and in particular those of the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies. NGTs are capable of altering the genetic material of organisms which could be used for food, industrial, or pharmaceutical purposes. These new techniques, enabling faster, more specific, and more efficient breeding processes, are expected to keep expanding. The public consultation’s factsheet explains how its findings can feed into this work via development of a new regulatory framework.