Controversies and challenges facing gene editing in the UK
GM Freeze reports on a Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum conference
On 29th April 2025, as the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations were making their way through parliament, a group of experts gathered virtually at a Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum conference to discuss the next steps for gene editing – new GMOs – in the UK.
The panellists included stakeholders from government, industry, research institutes, law firms, NGOs and a plant breeding lobbying organisation. The range of interests represented and willingness to take questions from the floor made for a far-reaching discussion, which highlighted a number of challenges in relation to gene editing and the regulatory framework that will govern it.
In this article we discuss some of the issues raised, including labelling and public opinion, trade disruptions, risks, patents, nutritional impacts, contamination and challenges with the technology.
Chairperson Baroness Bennett tweets about the Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum event on gene editing, 29th April 2025.
Labelling and public opinion
Gene edited foods are likely to reach consumers by Autumn this year, according to Professor Gideon Henderson, Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). There will be no mandatory labelling, which is a contentious issue that many of the panellists commented on.
Professor Cathie Martin from the John Innes agricultural research centre was the lone voice amongst the research, industry or government representatives that spoke in favour of labelling. However, polls have consistently shown that the public want labelling, as highlighted by Kierra Box from Friends of the Earth, Dr. Fere Malekpour from the agri-tech company B-Hive Innovations and Daniel Cameron of the market research company Ipsos. Dr. Kate Parkes of the RSPCA pointed out that we do have existing legislation governing labels that identify how a food item was produced, for example, different methods of egg production.
A couple of the panellists were sceptical about public engagement. Duncan Ribbons of the biotech company Tropic was of the opinion that it’s really hard to educate consumers if you tackle them with science, but if issues are framed in terms of benefits these are more readily understood and accepted.
This approach, of focusing on perceived benefits rather than science when engaging with the public on gene editing, appears to have underpinned some DEFRA research into public perceptions of gene edited foods, including a 2022 poll it commissioned. Although it did not put the results in the public domain, pollsters YouGov published it following prompting from Dr. Mark Pack of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC). Baron Pack claimed that respondents were given positives about the technology but not any possible concerns.
The SLSC has been critical of DEFRA’s use of an unpublished poll to “justify potentially contentious policy decisions”. Nevertheless, Professor Henderson drew on the poll during the Forum, claiming that 57% of people thought that the use of gene editing to make plants in food production was acceptable.
The government’s refusal to label gene edited foods should be seen in light of the fact that, according to this poll, nearly half of the population is unsure about the technology or consider its use in food production unacceptable.
Baron Pack conducted some additional analysis of the poll, and found that only 52% of those surveyed had heard of genome/gene editing and only 1.5% said that they were very well informed about it. He concluded that “using that one question [which gave the 57% figure] as part of the evidence base for policy is not putting policy on secure foundations.”
Professor Henderson is responsible for overseeing the quality of evidence that DEFRA relies on for policy decisions. Hopefully his analysis of scientific results is more robust than polling information.
Trade impacts
Another recurring issue was the likely impacts on trade. England joins around 20 countries that have introduced “enabling” regulations for gene editing, according to Dr. Teresa Babuscio from the agribusiness Corteva, which has reportedly applied for around 1430 patents on new GMOs.[i] She acknowledged that there would be trade disruption if Scotland and Wales did not also “embrace the technology.” Dr. Malekpour also referred to the need for regulatory alignment in order to avoid “trade friction.”
Professor Henderson noted that, although Scotland and Wales do not allow gene edited products to be grown in their jurisdiction, because of the UK Internal Markets Act (UKIMA), things that are sold in England will be able to transfer across the border into Scotland or Wales and sold there. He also raised the potential for a late-stage exception to the UKIMA, however, he stated that this was not expected.
Regarding trade with the EU, Professor Henderson said it will be “very easy to simply prevent those crops from moving into the EU,” and that he was “not anticipating any complexities in terms of EU borders over those which already exist.” This is interesting given that, in an Impact Assessment published by DEFRA in 2022, trade barriers in the form of checks and certification requirements were predicted, which would affect all products for which there are gene edited varieties. These non-tariff barriers were predicted to increase the costs of production for UK food exporters by an estimated £8.56bn a year.
Mr. Ribbons noted that the handful of gene edited products that have been approved and commercialized are still treated as GMOs in the majority of countries. Divergent regulatory systems creates barriers to trade, he stated, so “accelerating adoption of precision breeding regulation on a global basis is therefore the number one priority for developers.”
According to Professor Henderson, there are “lots of markets around the world” which allow gene edited products. He claimed that they would become “easier to access than they are at the moment,” though he didn’t explain the reasoning behind this prediction.
Professor Henderson acknowledged that there would need to be ways to trace gene edited products through supply chains if we are to sell mass produced crops such as wheat to countries that do not allow such materials. Professor Martin also highlighted this problem with commodity crops, stating that “wheat breeders are very anxious about mixing in GE[ii] with non-GE and having to separate it.”
Ms. Box highlighted the dangers of our “increasingly fragmented global trade system,” querying the impacts for farmers in England and the global South alike of buying patented seeds from other countries.
Trade disruptions could hit UK wheat exporters. But who would be liable for losses? Photo: David Bagnall/Alamy
Risk
Risk was another issue about which the panellists’ views differed. According to Dr. Malekpour, not all gene edited crops carry same level of risk, and the level of scrutiny applied should be proportionate. But Professor Mario Caccamo, from the biotech company Niab, stated that the risks are no different to those associated with traditional breeding techniques.
Ms. Box, however, raised the potential of risks to people and nature as a result of gene editing and called for a precautionary approach “in which there’s a full assessment of risk alongside monitoring and mitigation mechanisms which are baked in.”
She explained: “So if things go wrong, harm can be tackled in the moment and prevented in future.” She stated that she is “concerned that the systems we’re talking about today don’t adequately consider the potential for unintended consequences or unforeseen risk.” The specific risks she highlighted were off-target changes to the genome, knock-on ecosystem harms and public health impacts.
Nutritional considerations of bruising, browning and rotting
Two of the three crops being developed by panellists that were presented during the conference involve stopping the food – in this case, potatoes and bananas – from bruising or browning. There was some discussion regarding whether stopping the discolouration would also stop the decomposition process that it would otherwise indicate. Mr. Ribbons of Tropic claimed that there would be no change to the nutritional value of the fruit. Dr. Malekpour of B-Hive Innovations stated that normally if you see a damaged fruit or crop you wouldn’t eat it, but nutritionally it should stay the same. It should perhaps be noted that she did not appear to have given the question prior consideration.
Is it really wise to disguise damaged and over-ripe fruit?
Pharmafruits
Further discussion of the nutritional potential of gene edited products arose with Professor Martin’s introduction of a tomato that has been genetically engineered to accumulate pro-vitamin D. The question was raised as to whether supplements would be preferable to genetically altering fruit, and easier and cheaper to deliver in countries that vitamin D deficiency is a particular problem.[iii]
Professor Martin stated: “it’s always better to try and offer people the choice of having their vitamins through food” (emphasis added). She suggested that people could then take their vitamin D in a Big Mac or in ketchup.
Here again the labelling question arose: due to the lack of any labelling requirement it would seem that the John Innes Centre is considering describing the product as a “sunshine tomato,” and vitamin D enriched, but not stating the mechanism by which this has been achieved.
The regulations for supplements cover labelling, safety, and the health claims made. One outstanding regulatory issue is whether pharmafruits – those with claimed enhanced nutritional qualities – should be regulated as supplements.
Tomatoes naturally contain the antioxidant lycopene, which is thought to support bone health. Photo: Verywell Health
Patents
Siân Edmonds from the law firm Osborne Clarke stated that the Genetic Technology Act and draft regulations are silent on Intellectual property, but that under the European patent convention, “plants and their processes of production may be patented provided that they are not exclusively obtained by means of an essentially biological process.”
She also stated that the scope of genetic technology patents does not extend to plants produced via conventional breeding methods. However, Ms. Edmonds was not familiar with research that has been done by groups such as No Patents on Seeds, which found that “gene variants and traits found in existing plant populations are frequently being ‘re-invented’ with NGTs[iv] to create the impression of a technical invention.” Such patents “very often extend to conventional breeding,” according to the research.
One panellist who has first-hand experience of the issue is Professor Martin, whose biotech company, Norfolk Healthy Produce (NHP), has pursued a traditional plant breeder over alleged patent infringement. Testing of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company’s purple tomato did not conclusively find evidence of NHP’s genetically modified material, but nor could it be proved that it was free of it. The Baker Creek tomato has been withdrawn.
Could have happened naturally?
Whilst in theory patents should not be granted for plants unless they involve a technical invention, the very definition of precision breeding is that the change it brings about could have happened through traditional breeding processes.
Professor Martin stated that she believed that the tomato plants she is producing could have occurred through traditional breeding. Furthermore, the John Innes Centre is running a project to try and screen for natural variants, “having shown that we can produce them by editing.”
Contamination
Another problematic issue is that of contamination. According to Ms. Box, “it’s very unclear how organic operators will be able to maintain their legal duty to remain GMO free, how cross contamination might be prevented, traced and stopped, or who would be liable in the event of an organic farmer’s crop being contaminated.”
The British On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN) is scaling up the production of gene edited wheat and barley seeds in multiple sites across the UK. BOFIN’s Tom Allen-Stevens was asked whether there will be any efforts to inform neighbouring farmers of the trials so that they can take steps to ensure there is no contamination of their crops. He stated that the position of the farmers they are working with has changed: A 2019 survey found that they considered it the neighbouring farmers’ responsibility to protect their crops, but in 2023 they favoured a voluntary arrangement to inform their neighbours. According to Mr. Allen-Stevens, it’s “easy peasy to talk to your neighbour.” The Chair of the event, the Green Party Baroness Natalie Bennett, expressed some scepticism over this claim.
During the BOFIN project they will monitor how farmers get on with approaching their neighbours. Mr. Allen-Stevens suggested the farmers might say: “Look, I’m going to be growing a PBO.[v] Obviously, I’ll keep it away from the boundary…”
Challenges with the technology
Alongside the regulatory challenges presented by gene editing, Dr. Nekrasov highlighted the fact that there are also challenges with the technology. “Our understanding of genetic networks controlling traits in crops is still very limited,” he said. The specific issues he raised were the absence of genome sequence information; the delivery of genome editing tools into plants, the efficiency of genome editing tools and challenges with editing multiple genes at the same time.
Dr. Nekrasov also raised the question of what evidence will be needed to prove that a product classified as Precision Bred is transgene-free. Professor Martin made the case for whole genome sequencing, stating that it is “absolutely reliable” and questioning why “we avoid that as a requirement.”
The disclosure requirements of the Register
During the conference it became apparent that developers are uncertain about other aspects of the regulatory framework soon to be in operation. Professor Martin queried how much information will be publicly available about the edits made through the PBO register. Interestingly she didn’t direct this question to Professor Henderson, but to Dr. Anthony Hopkins of the British Society of Plant Breeders – a lobbying organisation whose members include the four biggest global pesticides corporations that also control 70% of the global seed market: Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva and BASF.
Dr. Hopkins said he didn’t have the details entirely at hand but that he suspected it wouldn’t be a vast amount of detail.
A systemic approach?
Dr. Malekpour echoed a claim made by DEFRA third-in-command Emma Hardy MP when the Genetic Technology regulations were debated in a parliamentary committee. Both spoke of the potential for gene editing to transform the food system.
But Baroness Bennet argued that “doubling down on what we’re doing now is not the answer.” We should be going to an agro-ecological approach that works with nature, rather than trying to force it into submission, she said.
For Kierra Box, “racing to fight specific pests and so-called deficiency in the foods we eat gene by gene is the opposite of the ecosystems-based approach that we need to see.” The solutions we should be looking for are those that work in tandem with nature, building resilience through diversity, she argued.
Whatever next?
DEFRA has recently run a public consultation on whether the seeds of gene edited plants will need to be labelled. Interestingly, this was not raised in the Westminster Forum discussion, despite the fact that the decision is likely to be a significant next regulatory step in terms of gene editing in the UK.
In the UK the legislative landscape is changing in order to facilitate the production and sale of gene edited products. The conference served to highlight the fact that, despite this, there remain a number of significant challenges, uncertainties and issues of contention.
Leonie Nimmo is the Executive Director of GM Freeze.
Notes
[i] Genetically Modified Organisms produced through gene editing and other new genetic technologies.
[ii] Gene edited.
[iii] Perhaps they could also be modified to withstand the effect of bruising, or at least disguise its impacts.
[iv] Plants produced using New Genomic Techniques. This classification is likely to have some convergence with Precision Bred Organisms (PBOs) in England.
[v] Precision Bred Organism.
