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for a responsible, fair & sustainable food system

Consultation responses

Detailed, referenced, written responses to a wide range of formal consultations concerning issues relating to GM in food and farming. This includes objections to UK GM field trials, submissions to parliamentary inquiries and more. Multi-agency responses are submitted on behalf of GM Freeze and other organisations.


Defra: Multi-agency response to wheat trial 16_R8_02

14 Dec 2016

ripe wheat fieldGM Freeze and thirty other organisations came together to ask Defra not to allow Rothamsted Research to release GM wheat in an open-air trial.

Science Communication Inquiry

16 May 2016

GM Freeze submitted written evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into Science Communication.

Our evidence explains why we consider that the framing of regulatory consultations, media coverage and wider debate around the use GM in food and farming is too narrow. Social and ethical considerations are excluded from the regulatory process and side-lined in the media. Individuals who are not able to express themselves with scientific accuracy are denied a voice and language is used in ways that can easily mislead or confuse.

Defra: Multi-agency response to potatoes trial 16_R29_01

21 Mar 2016

potatoes harvested in a field

GM Freeze and twenty-one other organisations came together to ask Defra not to allow the Sainsbury’s Laboratory to release GM blight-resistant potatoes in an open-air trial.

Defra: Multi-agency response to Camelina trial 16_R8_01

21 Mar 2016

GM Freeze and twenty other organisations came together to ask Defra not to allow Rothamsted Research to release GM camelina in a new trial.

Nuffield Council on Bioethics – Genome Editing

3 Feb 2016

Snapshot of a DNA double helix

GM Freeze responded to a Nuffield Council on Bioethics call for evidence on Genome Editing: http://nuffieldbioethics.org/project/genome-editing/open-call-for-evidence/

Genome editing shares many of the same risks as GM, while also presenting new problems. There is much that can go wrong and it is vital that new techniques are subject to proper regulation, traceability and end-product labelling.

People have a wide range of ethical concerns about genetic engineering and it is vital that these are properly considered. Individuals without the advantage of a technically accurate vocabulary must be heard and understood.

More on this issue under Why a Freeze / New GM techniques in the menu above (sorry, there’s a glitch on links in this part of the website)