TURIN - After the yes to the Senate commission, a vast front of associations, including Slow Food, WWf, Legambiente, Greenpeace, Pro Natura, is mobilizing in view of the January 13 vote in the Agriculture Committee of the Chamber on the 4 decrees on the so-called ' new GMOs', as the New Breeding Techniques (Nbt) call.
"The approval of the decrees on Nbt - claims the network of associations - would constitute a serious attack on our agri-food chain, the precautionary principle, the rights of farmers, as well as the violation of the European Court of Justice ruling which equates new and old GMOs . Already last December 28, quietly and with a session in reduced ranks for the holidays, the Agriculture Commission of the Senate expressed a favorable opinion on the 4 decrees, which actually allow the experimentation in an untraceable field of varieties of seeds and material of multiplication obtained with the 'new genetic improvement techniques' (Nbt) which, as confirmed by the 2018 ruling of the European Court of Justice, are in all respects GMOs and as such must comply with the existing European regulations on the subject ".
"If the Agriculture Commission of the Chamber takes the same decision as that of the Senate, - continues the network of associations - Dop, IGP, quality wines, organic production, local products, local and traditional varieties may be contaminated by products obtained with new genome editing (Nbt) techniques that will not be labeled as GMOs and therefore will be unrecognizable for consumers ".
The new genome editing techniques "often also involve unwanted mutations (off target), made more and more evident and documented by the scientific literature. Finally, genome editing protocols normally involve the same basic techniques of the 'old' GMOs, responsible for deletions and unwanted rearrangements.