GMWatch News Review archive

Review 595: GMOs in General, Part I

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Welcome to Part I of our GMOs in General Review. We lead with disturbing NEW GMOs UPDATES, followed by GMO BANS AND RESTRICTIONS, SEED SOVEREIGNTY, the shocking human costs of a major GMO FAILURE, and our latest LOBBYWATCH reports on the 10-billion-dollar biotech Goliath, Colossal Biosciences. We also have sections on GMO APPROVALS AND EXPANSION and PATENTS. Part II of the GMOs in General Review will follow soon.

NEW GMOs UPDATES
EU’s ENVI Committee votes to deregulate new GMOs
In the EU European Parliament’s ENVI Committee, 59 MEPs voted in favour of deregulation, 24 against, and there were 2 abstentions. Members of the right-wing EPP and far-right PfE parties voted en bloc in favour of deregulation. In GMWatch’s view, this was a sad day for democracy, public health and the environment. But the proposal still has to be approved in a European Parliament plenary, which is expected to take place towards the end of April. (No link in header)

Coming to your neighbourhood soon? Seriously risky outdoor gene editing
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Gene-edited plants developed and tested in labs and greenhouses before release carry risks – as numerous scientific papers attest. Yet outdoor gene editing poses even more serious risks – including that active gene editing tools could end up altering the genomes of humans and other living organisms in the environment. Some scientists who argue for deregulation of gene editing deny that outdoor gene editing is possible. But patents and the scientific literature tell a very different story. The authors of a new scientific paper on the topic, Prof Jack Heinemann and colleagues, write: “Scalable lab-free genome editing is already firmly in the technological trajectory of molecular biology and agricultural practice.”
GMO BANS AND RESTRICTIONS
Genetically modified wheat banned in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina 
A court ruling has prohibited the use and release of GM HB4 wheat in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires. The ruling is temporary until the Agricultural Biotechnology and Biosafety Commission is formed, which is responsible for preparing a report on the introduction and release of the GM wheat and its effects on natural resources, health, production and marketing. The precautionary measure was issued by the court in response to a petition filed by producers from agroecological establishments, socio-environmental organisations and indigenous peoples. Judge Néstor Adrián Salas said the release of the world’s first approved GM wheat – developed and marketed by Bioceres – could cause “serious and irreversible damage” to the environment and human health. He refers to both the crop and the associated agrochemical – in this case, glufosinate, a herbicide that is more toxic than glyphosate. “If the material is released in Buenos Aires province, this being the first [GM] genetic event to be applied to wheat seed, it could lead to the irreversible crossbreeding of the material with non-genetically modified wheat,” warns Salas. 
Italy’s ban on cultivating GMO corn legitimate says EU court
Italy’s ban on the cultivation of genetically modified corn is legitimate, the Court of Justice of the European Union said. The decision regarded an appeal by an Italian farmer who was ordered to destroy a crop of GM maize (MON 810), which was planted on his farm despite the ban, and given fines totalling 50,000 euros. The Court endorsed the procedure that, at the request of a Member State and with the tacit consent of the authorisation holder, allows the European Commission to restrict the zone where the cultivation of a GMO is authorised. (Unfortunately, such national bans will not be allowed on new GMOs (NGTs) under the deregulation as currently proposed in the EU.)
SEED SOVEREIGNTY
Victory for maize class action lawsuit in Mexico
Mexico’s Demanda Colectiva Maíz (Maíz Class Action Lawsuit) has won a new legal victory in the fight for food sovereignty. The federal court said the government must respond to their demand that Mexico countersue the US under the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) for 
* Missing analyses and safety studies on GMO maize 
* Biased risk assessments.
After two years without a response from the Ministry of Economy, the federal court has ordered it to respond to Demanda Colectiva Maíz’s request to activate USMCA mechanisms against the United States in the area of agricultural biotechnology. Demanda Colectiva Maíz, initiated in 2013 in Mexico by citizens and organisations, seeks to permanently ban the planting of genetically modified corn and the use of glyphosate, in order to protect native biodiversity, health, and food sovereignty.
Israeli forces attack seed bank in Palestine
In July 2025, the Israeli military forces carried out a raid on the Seed Multiplication Unit of the Palestinian Seed Bank in Hebron. Bulldozers and military equipment were used to demolish the storage facilities, where indigenous seeds, agricultural tools, and equipment were kept for local seed reproduction. The facility has been central to the collective effort of Palestinian peasants to preserve traditional seed varieties and ensure their ability to cultivate food on their own terms. La Via Campesina, the global movement of peasant farmers, has denounced the attack.
Kenyan farmers secure right to share local seeds in court ruling
Small-scale farmers in Kenya sang and celebrated after a court ruling secured their right to carry on the traditional practice of sharing local seeds. Kenya’s High Court said that part of a law banning the practice was unconstitutional, a ruling that farmer Samuel Kioko called a “great victory”.
Indian farmers protest new seed bill, calling it a threat to the country’s sovereignty
Hundreds of thousands of farmers across India protested against the new draft Seed Bill 2025 in December, burning copies of the bill and demanding its withdrawal. The bill will compromise the country’s food security and threaten its seed sovereignty, the farmers claimed. They fear it will establish multinational corporate control over the supply of seeds, ending the existing arrangement, which provides greater flexibility to the farmers to source seeds from local or public sectors.
GMO FAILURE
Farmer suicides in India: Bt cotton a major driver
Maharashtra and Karnataka have remained the epicentres of farmer suicides in India for more than two decades, with suicide rates consistently about 2.5 times the national average since the mid-1990s, according to a new analysis of 28 years of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. One of the major drivers over the years has been the rapid spread of Bt cotton in the early 2000s, particularly across rain-fed regions, the analysis by independent research organisation Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) found. Based on state-wise suicide rates per 100,000 agricultural population using data from the NCRB, the study links the crisis in these states to the failure of Bt cotton to deliver on promises of higher yields and pest resistance. Instead, farmers faced sharply rising input costs and greater financial risk. Repeated crop failures, combined with the absence of reliable price support, pushed many small and marginal farmers into chronic debt.
LOBBYWATCH
Dark PR attacks on critics of 10-billion-dollar biotech Goliath, Colossal Biosciences
In its October issue, TIME magazine introduced “The World’s Most Influential Rising Stars”, featuring “100 emerging leaders from around the world who are shaping the future”. One of them is Ben Lamm, whom TIME credits with bringing back the dire wolf from extinction “after over 10,000 years” through genetic engineering. Lamm’s write-up, penned by synthetic biology pioneer George Church, doesn’t hold back: “Ben Lamm’s vision is colossal. Starting from scratch in 2021, Ben – the CEO and my co-founder at de-extinction startup Colossal Biosciences – has corralled unprecedented resources to realize his vision of restoring extinct species to our world”. However, Lamm and his company – far from resurrecting any extinct species – have actually engaged in a series of carefully orchestrated and highly deceptive publicity stunts that are damaging distractions from genuine conservation. And some of those who’ve pointed this out have been subjected to a vicious campaign of intimidation that has included legal threats, orchestrated smears, and weaponised copyright claims. Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch reports.
Faking it without making it: The de-extinction disinfo campaign manager’s history of hype 
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Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch looks into the business background of Ben Lamm (see above), who founded Colossal with the Harvard geneticist George Church, and why it might cast light on how Colossal came to be built around what the geneticist Adam Rutherford calls “a con, full of gloss, bullshit and ghoulish greed”. Matthews shows how Lamm has a history of successfully hyping up “world-changing” ventures in the media that ultimately lead nowhere, as illustrated by his previous company Hypergiant, which was promoted as “the company to transport humanity to a future of ‘smart cities, flying cars, a cure for cancer and longer lives’”, as well as having the techno-fix to “take on climate change”. But as with de-extinction, cheerleading such false techno-fixes in the media distracts from real attempts to address biodiversity loss and climate change.
“The GMO industry is based on a unique economy, that of the eternally renewed promise”
That’s the headline of an excellent article by the journalist Stéphane Foucart in Le Monde. He writes: “In 1996, the first generation of genetically modified seeds appeared in North American fields, leaving the European Union (EU) rather sceptical about the industry's promises. Three decades later, the EU has changed and is preparing to open the door wide to ‘new GMOs’ – plants derived from ‘new genomic techniques’ (NGTs). These could enter the market without environmental or health risk assessments, without traceability, without consumer labelling, and without any provisions for coexistence with conventional crops... The promoters of these new technologies promise reduced inputs, higher yields, crops adapted to high temperatures, droughts, pathogens, etc. But there is a sense of déjà vu here: in the late 1990s, the same arguments, sometimes word for word, were put forward by the promoters of the first generations of GMOs. Thirty years later, what GMOs have done to American agriculture – which has widely adopted them – is the opposite.”
More than 300 big agriculture lobbyists take part in COP30 climate talks
The COP30 climate talks ended in November 2025. More than 300 industrial agriculture lobbyists participated at the talks taking place in Belém in the Brazilian Amazon, where the industry is the leading cause of deforestation. See also this for Bayer’s COP30 contribution.
GMO APPROVALS AND EXPANSION
GM Purple Tomato seeds and fruit approved in Canada
The GM Purple Tomato, which contains snapdragon genes, has been approved in Canada, meaning it could appear in grocery stores at any time. GM purple tomato seeds in small packets can also now be purchased online by growers in Canada. It is already on sale in the US. For the uncertainties around the health impact of this genetically engineered tomato, the history of wildly misleading claims used to promote it, and the food safety questions that remain, see this.
GM Purple Tomato approved in Australia
The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator and Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) have now both approved the GM Purple Tomato in Australia. It can be sold commercially, grown, and eaten there. Prior to importing GM Purple Tomato as seeds, plants or fruit, an import permit from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Biosecurity) would also be needed. Separate approval would be required in the Australian state of Tasmania, which maintains a strict state-wide ban on the commercial release of GM crops.
Are GM purple tomatoes coming to British supermarkets?
Cathie Martin and her colleague Jonathan Jones, a geneticist at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, plan to apply to the UK Food Standards Agency for their GM Purple Tomato to go on sale in England. According to a report in the Times, they hope it will be “a test case to change the rules blocking genetically modified food” (though in fact nothing blocks the sale of authorised GM foods in the UK apart from retailer and consumer rejection). As the tomato is older-style GM, engineered with snapdragon genes, and is not the type of gene-edited GMO called by the UK government a "precision bred organism", it will have to be labelled as GM. Jones said: “We could theoretically achieve the changes in the purple tomato using genetic editing rather than the classic GM method but it would not be easy. It could take another five years. We have already waited 20 years. Both Cathie and I are in our early 70s and we are not willing to wait another five years to get to the place we already are.” An archived version of the paywalled Times article is available here. See also an excellent article by Leonie Nimmo of GM Freeze on the history of deceptive health claims made for the tomato.
GM herbicide-tolerant Bt cotton seeds illegally promoted in India
GMO herbicide-tolerant Bt cotton seeds are being pushed in the Indian state of Telangana. A farmers’ Commission chairman has cautioned farmers against the use of the banned seeds and glyphosate as they pose serious risks to agriculture, soil health and human safety.
PATENTS
Bayer, Corteva control vast majority of GMO seed patents
Just two companies — Bayer, the German conglomerate, and Corteva Agrisciences, which spun off from DowDuPont in 2018 — control the vast majority of patents related to genetically engineered crops. They own just under 80% of these patents, according to US Department of Agriculture research. Bayer and Corteva both own thousands of patents related to seed. The two companies also control large swaths of pesticide markets. A third chemical company, Syngenta, also owns many corn and soybean patents. The USDA has said the concentration in intellectual property has led to fewer choices for farmers. It has also led to less innovation in the industry and higher seed costs for farmers, the USDA has said. (This article is not new but it's still highly relevant.)
European Patent Office turns its back on EU decisions 
Recent decisions by the European Patent Office (EPO) show that existing bans on the patenting of seeds are insufficient to stop the monopolisation of natural genetic resources, reports No Patents on Seeds. The group says despite the ban on patenting plants obtained from “essentially biological processes”, naturally occurring plant genes continue to be patented as inventions. As a result, plants bred using these genes also fall within the scope of the patents.
Just 7 patents affect 145 conventionally bred plant varieties
Research by No Patents on Seeds revealed that the European Patent Office (EPO) granted around 40 patents claiming conventional breeding in 2025. Seven of these patents impact 145 conventionally bred plant varieties. They are included in an industry database (PINTO), which lists conventionally bred plant varieties impacted by patents and on the market. Unlike other plant varieties, these plants may not be used by other breeders without a licence agreement. One of the patents was granted to ChemChina/Syngenta and is especially worrying as it affects 125 maize varieties.
Patent on maize with native traits upheld
The decision of 6 November by the European Patent Office (EPO) with regard to an opposition filed against a patent granted to the German company KWS only provides for minor changes, reports No Patents on Seeds. The EPO was supposed to apply a new rule in this case that is intended to exclude patents on plants obtained from classical breeding. However, this new decision means that the patent will still cover the maize plants obtained from the selection of naturally occurring gene variants. No Patents on Seeds is demanding that the EU take strong action to clarify that patent law only allows patents on methods of genetic engineering. Current EPO practice needs to be stopped.