New undeclared GMOs: the NPBTs case
They are comparable to GM but they tend to escape the meshes of European legislation on the subject. There is therefore a real risk of finding them on your table without even knowing it. The agri-food products in question are made with "new plant breeding techniques" (NPBTs - New Plant Breeding Techniques), which develop new seed traits within a given species, thanks to genetic engineering.
NPBTs are subject to strong opposition from European organic organizations, which are asking the European Commission to equate them with GMOs. At the beginning of 2016, the International Federation of Movements of Organic Agriculture EU (IFOAM EU) sent a political position to the European Commission asking, among other things, that these new techniques be subject to a specific risk assessment for the purposes of of authorization, traceability and specific mandatory labeling, as already provided for other GMO products.
The document published by the organization of German organic farmers, VLOG, is of the same content, highlighting the obligation to guarantee the safety and freedom of choice of consumers. In the absence of rules consistent with those established for GMOs, VLOG argues, products subjected to these genetic modifications cannot be monitored, nor can they be subjected to corrective actions in cases of emergency. In the absence of a regulation, a massive spread of new plants “differently GMO”, without control, in total disregard of the precautionary principle, is conceivable.
The lobby of the new modified crops, on the other hand, argues that the European legislation on GMOs is inapplicable, because no foreign DNA would be present in the traits of the new seeds. It is therefore yet another Trojan horse aimed at spreading new products on European shelves, where consumers' aversion to GMOs is known. However, even in the homeland of GMOs, new laboratory crosses are opposed: the US National Organic Standards Board has in fact decreed that products obtained with NPBTs techniques cannot be qualified as organic.
