NGTs : a much-needed agreement for both farmers and consumers 

Last night, the Council presidency and European Parliament’s negotiators reached a provisional agreement on a set of rules that establish a legal framework for New Genomic Techniques (NGTs). 

The provisional deal on New Breeding Techniques is a glimpse of blue in an overcast sky for European farmers, finally paving the way to facilitate the uptake of innovation in European agriculture. 

The distinction between NGT1 and NGT2 will facilitate market access to innovative seeds. The modifications that can occur in nature will be operated more effectively and more quickly than conventional breeding practices. This will help overcome some challenges EU agriculture is confronted with like water resilience, climate change or increased pressure from pests and diseases. This will help to move on the path of sustainable intensification, most needed to produce more and better, and lay down the foundations of a carbon-neutral economy leveraging agriculture as a solution. 

The deal is a compromise. The implementation of the deal only two years after its final adoption is a delay which will undermine the level playing field for EU farmers in comparison to their competitors globally ; the exclusion list applied to NGT1 category is contradicting the principle that those modifications could occur in nature.

However, the agreement represents a light at the end of the tunnel after years during which farmers have been constrained by political choices that placed ideology ahead of science, and consumers left uncertain about the real nature of their food options.

A EU framework based on shared scientific criteria will help reduce the confusion between NGTs and traditional GMOs, which has long fuelled public mistrust.

Despite the division among EP rapporteurs, EU farmers and consumers need this text to be adopted as quickly as possible, in order to be equipped with the necessary tools for a more resilient, competitive and sustainable agriculture.

The provisional agreement must now be confirmed by the Council and the European Parliament before the legislative act is formally adopted by the co-legislators.