Media Centre

abc welcomes the passage of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act in the UK.

This is a milestone for the UK science and innovation sector and has the potential to provide a regulatory framework that enables the potential of precision breeding in agriculture. Precision breeding is an innovative and cutting-edge set of tools that British agriculture needs to continue becoming safer, more efficient, and more sustainable.

abc is committed to working closely with the Government, industry, and other stakeholders to ensure that UK agriculture can benefit from the full potential of precision breeding and other biotechnologies in the future. The Government must now prioritise setting out the path towards the practical use of these techniques, otherwise the full benefits will not be realised, meanwhile it must ensure regulation is clear, concise, harmonized with other global science-based frameworks and most importantly proportionate to the safety of precision bred products. Doing so will help unlock the UK’s potential to be at the forefront of scientific advances in agriculture, whilst attracting the investment that can help achieve this.

In the face of growing and complex global challenges such as climate change, food insecurity and rapid price increases, it is important that farmers are able to access all the tools available to provide safe, nutritious, and sustainable grown food. Farmers want to play their role meeting these challenges, while consumers demand high quality food grown with the lowest possible environmental impact. Moving towards these goals by completing the regulatory reform begun by the Precision Breeding Act is the vital next step for our future.