"When it comes to food, decisions have to be made on the basis of what science tells us and I think European politicians also think so". This was stated by US Secretary of State for Agriculture Sonny Perdue to the Euractiv online newspaper on the sidelines of the visit to Brussels during which he met three commissioners and ministers of agriculture of the Twenty-eight. Especially in the case of new agricultural biotechnology such as genome editing, according to Perdue, "as politicians we have a responsibility to clearly tell the public that these are not strange types of Frankenstein genes, but only the acceleration of a selection and crossing technique. natural".
The development of new agricultural biotechnologies has become an unknown in Europe after a ruling by the EU Court of Justice which has compared the products of the latest generation techniques to GMOs, with the consequence of subjecting them to the same onerous control procedures. With the latest findings, Perdue thinks "we can manipulate DNA to obtain a more efficient, effective, healthier and safer product and this must be said to the public in Europe". Even the European Parliament, according to the US secretary of state, should be more aware of the benefits of this progress. The number one of the stars and stripes agriculture, on the other hand, notes in the EU politicians "a certain anxiety regarding the ability to contrast what the NGOs say, which spread fear". The new techniques "are a tool that European farmers can use, because they are safe, efficient and cheap," he continued. "We want environmental sustainability, we want social sustainability, but there must also be economic sustainability. If you do not have economic sustainability in the agricultural sector, you will not have environmental or social sustainability", he concluded by recalling that all this also has implications for the CAP reform. "I think that European farmers have the legitimate concern that the EU wants to make them simple recipients of welfare and welfare measures, not letting them do what they know how to do", that is, to produce food.
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