Furthermore, hardly any acceptance for genetic engineering in food
A large majority of the population in Germany has rejected the use of genetic engineering in agriculture for many years: 79 percent of those surveyed are in favor of a ban on genetic engineering in agriculture. 93 percent of those surveyed want food from animals fed with genetically modified feed to be labelled. Among other things, these are the results of the current nature awareness study by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, which was published shortly before the announced decision of the European Court of Justice on July 25, 2018 on the future classification of some new breeding methods. The judges had already announced in advance that genetically modified organisms are only considered to be genetically modified organisms and must be regulated as such if their "genetic material has been modified in a way that is not possible in a natural way." whether the genetic engineering law needs to be amended is inevitable.
Many scientists and economic stakeholders argue that the cultivated end product no longer contains any foreign genetic material and is therefore not genetic engineering in the classic sense. They hope that "genome editing" methods will lead to faster breeding progress and completely new strategies, for example for herbicide-free crop protection.
Many organizations critical of genetic engineering and organic food manufacturers consider the new processes to be genetically engineered as food production processes. Elke Röder, head of the Federal Organic Food Industry (BÖLW), therefore considers it “crucial that the federal government also enforces the precautionary principle with new genetic engineering such as 'Crispr-Cas' or 'targeted mutagenesis'. Customers must continue to be free to choose what they grow or eat and therefore labeling must ensure transparency on the label.”
Britta Klein, www.bzfe.de
Further information:
https://www.transgen.de/forschung/2564.crispr-genome-editing-pflanzen.html
Background information:
The current, meanwhile fifth, nature awareness study is based on a nationwide survey that was carried out at the end of 2017. A total of 2.065 randomly selected people aged 18 and over from the German-speaking resident population took part in the study. The nature awareness study records the social attitudes towards nature and biological diversity in Germany. It provides up-to-date and empirically verified data that form the basis for nature conservation policy, public discourse and educational work. The nature awareness studies have been published every two years since 2009 on behalf of the Federal Environment Ministry and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.
