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Video length: 2 min.
In Europe, the question of GMOs arises because new techniques are being developed and the European authorities could relax the rules for placing them on the market. But for environmental associations, it is still GMOs with the same risks.
For some politicians and industrialists, corn plants represent the future of agriculture. For the associations, these are new GMOs and they are fighting to ensure that they are never grown in the open field. Somewhere in Belgium, a researcher is working to improve plants. It uses what are called NGTs, new genome editing techniques to make plants more resistant. “Unfortunately, today they are not able to withstand the drought“, explains Hilde Nelissen, researcher and biologist.
Relax the rules
Plants that would resist drought better and that would consume less water, less pesticides or that would defend themselves against certain diseases, today for European justice, these are GMOs, not marketed. The procedures are very strict. For NGT, there is no introduction of other species as for the old GMOs. The European Commission proposes to relax the rules to facilitate the marketing of its plants. The associations denounce, among other things, false promises.