A disaster by design: the UK’s new rules for new GMOs
29 Sep 2025
This new report from GM Freeze outlines the many problems with the UK’s new regulations for new Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Download using link below.
GM Freeze has also written to the new heads of DEFRA urging them to take action to avoid environmental and socio-economic risks.
Problems with the UK’s treatment of new GMOs – a summary
- No safety testing or assessment of health risks––the GenTech Regulations
prevent this. - No environmental risk assessments.
- No segregation, labelling or traceability, or measures to notify neighbouring farms, or contain or monitor new GMOs along supply chains, which:
- Removes consumer freedom of choice;
- Increases contamination risk for nearby farms and wild species;
- Threatens non-GM production, supply chains and livelihoods;
- Undermines devolved nation sovereignty;
- Prevents the management of environmental risks;
- Threatens to disrupt trade with Europe and internationally, and
- Prevents the assessment of how changes might affect future crop generations.
- No detection measures will be developed.
- Developers will decide the risk profiles of different organisms.
- There will be inadequate assessment of unintended genetic changes.
- No plants are out of scope––the regulations extend to wild species and trees.
- Patents will extend to conventional breeding, which will stifle innovation in plant
breeding and threaten biodiversity. - There is no requirement for sustainability outcomes of new varieties.
- Detrimental impacts on Food Sovereignty and global food security are likely.
- Sets a precedent for inadequate management of powerful emerging technologies.
- Fails to adequately or scientifically define “precision breeding” and so places
developers at a legal advantage, which may have a chilling effect on regulators and expose taxpayers to expensive lawsuits. - Likely to contravene international agreements and protocols (the Aarhus
Convention and the Cartagena Protocol of the Convention of Biological Diversity). - Assumes new GMOs are equivalent to non-GMOs, and abandons the Precautionary Principle.
Report: A Disaster by Design
