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Aldi & Co. - Together against genetic engineering

2021-05-27T14:26:42.347Z


Discounters and organic chains want to work together to prevent the EU Commission from liberalizing new genetic engineering processes. They fear the influence of lobby groups.


"Without genetic engineering" seal

Photo: Gregor Fischer / picture alliance / dpa

There has to be a lot going on when the organic chains Dennree, Aldi and Lidl do something together. In the case of the new genetic engineering processes, however, the competitors are now trying to resist together. In a resolution with other food retailers such as Tegut, the Austrian Rewe or the Luxembourg organic chain Naturata, they are demanding that Brussels continue to regulate new genetic engineering in the same way as conventional genetic engineering processes. This is the only way, according to the resolution, to do justice to the "essential cornerstones of EU genetic engineering legislation" - the precautionary principle, risk assessment and transparency requirements.

The reason for the hectic activity in the trade is the concern that the EU Commission could give in to the biotech and seed lobby and deregulate the new procedures. These are subsumed under the term genome editing. In contrast to earlier genetically modified organisms (GMOs), genome editing is only intended to cut around the plant's genetic material in a targeted manner. The advantage: the development of new plants only takes half as long as with conventional GMOs. Corporations such as Bayer trust the technology to carry out a billion-dollar "biorevolution" with climate-resistant plants, but this has largely been a long time coming. And there is another difficulty: It was not until July 2018 that the European Court of Justice ruled that the new technologies should be equated with GMOs because of their risks:They are therefore subject to an elaborate risk assessment and the resulting food would have to be labeled - to the annoyance of the agricultural industry, which is countering this with a variety of PR strategies. (Read more on the subject here)

For the retail sector, on the other hand, its “credibility is at stake,” as the resolution puts it. If the new GM foods were largely untested and unmarked on the market, this would "damage or destroy" a market with sales in the double-digit billions - namely the growing market for clearly marked organic products as well as conventional goods with "ohne Gentechnik" «Label. With deregulation, Brussels would undermine two basic principles of the EU, the precautionary principle and freedom of choice, says Heike Moldenhauer, Secretary General of the European Non-GMO Association ENGA, co-initiator of the resolution. "The EU Commission then makes it possible, as it were, for consumers to be hyped genetic engineering products without them being able to recognize them."

A preliminary decision on the question could already be made this week: The EU Council of Agriculture Ministers is dealing with the regulation of new genetic engineering today.

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-05-27

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