Policy briefing: Enabling genetic technologies for food security

to a long period of regulatory uncertainty in the EU while the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) adjudicated a case on the scope of the mutagenesis exemption in the GMO Directive. [...] If the the ultimate arbiter of the regulations on GM crop is intended for human consumption, environmental risk assessment has moved any potential risks to human health are from the European Commission to the assessed by the Advisory Committee on Secretary of State at the Department for Novel Foods and Processes on behalf the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, of the Food Standards Agency (FSA). [...] In a series of reports in If the rules inherited from the EU continue 201321, ACRE identified shortcomings in the to be applied in the same way in the UK, it EU’s approach to the environmental risk will result in these risk assessments being assessment of GM crops and highlighted the applied in a manner that is disproportionate consequences of these in terms of reduced to the risks of individual G. [...] This would increase the feasibility GM crops face additional tests for risks to for start-up companies and university human health and the environment, and the spin-outs to commercialise the GM traits way this risk assessment is applied by the EU and crops with the kind of agronomic, is no longer in proportion to the likelihood that environmental, and consumer benefits any changes that are introdu. [...] The goal of this approach is to make the most of the scope within the regulations to use existing environmental surveillance networks to avoid duplication in the surveillance of different GM crops and adding to the expense of GM regulation.