Review 597: New GMOs

Welcome to our new Review on New GMOs. We cover the latest SCIENCE, as well as developments in the DEREGULATION pushes in the EU and New Zealand, and the post-deregulation situation in Japan and the UK. We take a look at the NEW GMOs PIPELINE – nothing to get excited about there – and report news on PATENTS and TECHNO-FOOD.

SCIENCE

GM plants differ from non-GM parents in unintended ways – and that goes for GM gene-edited plants too

Following a recent podcast interview, GMWatch co-director Claire Robinson and Prof Michael Antoniou were asked whether there is any solid scientific research looking at how gene expression or molecular composition in older-style “transgenic” and “new GM” gene-edited plants differs from conventionally bred plants. There is good evidence of unintended changes between older-style GMOs and their non-GMO counterparts. Regarding “new GMOs” made with gene editing tools, there is very little research looking at differences between the GM gene-edited plant and its non-GM parent. However, one study has already shown remarkable differences. CRISPR/Cas gene editing and base-editing gene editing of rice plants caused major changes in gene expression and protein profiles.

Scientists must confront uncertainties and limitations of CRISPR gene editing, say researchers
The rapid development of CRISPR-based gene editing has been accompanied by a polarised governance debate about the status of CRISPR-edited crops as GMOs. A new scientific article by researchers at Wageningen University & Research argues that the polarisation around the governance of gene editing partly reflects a failure of public engagement with the current state of research in genomics. In GMWatch’s view, this article is well worth reading and easy to understand. It takes in the gene-edited hornless cattle that turned out to unexpectedly contain antibiotic resistance genes, as well as other controversial topics.

EU DEREGULATION PUSH

EU Parliament decision on deregulation postponed to May
The “indicative” date (estimated timeframe) for the plenary session of the European Parliament, which will result in a decision on the EU’s GMO deregulation proposal, has been changed and is no longer 28 April 2026. It is now announced for the 18 May 2026, but this is still indicative so it could be sooner or later. (No link in header)

What can you do to oppose the EU GMO deregulation?
Get involved. A useful resource with lots of different actions to choose from, including ways to contact your MEP is here.
Related press releases and documents are here.
Download the toolkit for new-GMO-free municipalities here.
And see how the new-GMO-free municipality movement is already taking off in Italy.

Deregulation of new GMOs is without scientific basis
The draft European regulation, currently in the process of being adopted, which aims to deregulate almost all genetically modified plants derived from new genomic techniques (NGTs), is marred by numerous and significant scientific shortcomings, says France Nature Environnement in a new article. A coalition of 13 French organisations, including France Nature Environnement, has submitted a comprehensive document to the European Commission highlighting these shortcomings.

71 MPs urge the French government to reject the deregulation of GMOs derived from new GM techniques
In December 2025, contrary to its initial position, the French government representative came out in favour of the deregulation of new GMO/NGTs. This French U-turn, mirroring those of Poland and Greece, enabled a qualified majority of Member States to be reached on the “compromise” text. Following this new stance, motivated by non-binding commitments from the European Commission, 71 MPs (12% of the Assembly) from the political party La France Insoumise decided to table a European motion for a resolution “aimed at opposing the deregulation of plants derived from new genomic techniques and defending a strict European framework for health, environmental and democratic protection”.

The “Ohne Gentechnik” market grows to over 18 billion euros
Around 18.1 billion euros were spent on “Ohne Gentechnik” (Non-GMO) food in Germany in 2025, over a billion more than in 2024. A change in the law could soon lead to even stronger growth. Shortly before the upcoming EU deregulation of genetic engineering, the year-on-year increase in sales of products bearing the green “Ohne Gentechnik” seal stood at around 6.1 percent in 2025. “These encouraging figures show that ‘Ohne GenTechnik’ is and remains a solid model for success that continues to grow,” comments Alexander Hissting, managing director of the Association Food without Genetic Engineering (VLOG). “With the imminent widespread abolition of the legal requirement to label genetically modified ingredients [Category 1 GMOs made with new GM techniques] in food, the significance of ‘Ohne GenTechnik’ is likely to increase significantly once again. Anyone who wants to be sure in future that their food has been produced without genetic engineering will only be able to recognise this by the ‘Ohne GenTechnik’ or organic seal. As a result, our seal will be relevant in many more areas than before, including staple foods such as bread, potatoes and other vegetables, as well as products made from them. For ‘Ohne Gentechnik’, just as for organic, it is absolutely clear that no ‘new genetic engineering’ is used either. To continue to guarantee this, we now need workable coexistence regulations.”

EU consumers could lose the battle for GMO-free organic food, SAFE warns
SAFE – Safe Food Advocacy Europe, a European consumer organisation specialising in food policy – is calling for the protection of organic food in the EU. SAFE says it regrets recent legislative steps to make new genomic techniques (NGTs, new GM techniques) free from mandatory requirements applicable to other GMOs and warns that this will mean the end of organic food as we know it. SAFE’s deputy director Luigi Tozzi said: “Organic food production is at serious risk under the new legislation, because the measures in place to separate organic food production from food derived from new genomic techniques will disappear soon. This means that in the future, products sold as organic may contain traces of NGT crops, restricting consumer choice and undermining the very concept of organic food production. This is a very serious threat for an important sector trusted by millions of European consumers.”

NEW ZEALAND DEREGULATION PUSH

New Zealand: “Complex” gene tech bill in doubt as coalition talks prove fruitless
The Gene Technology Bill, a priority piece of legislation that New Zealand’s governing coalition promised to pass before the next election, could be kicked into the next term of Parliament following months of negotiations without a breakthrough. The controversial topic is the source of debate between coalition partners, with New Zealand First refusing to support the bill if it allows for the environmental release of GMOs. Science Minister Shane Reti says work is ongoing to find a solution that works for everyone, but as the months pass, the bill finds itself falling behind other legislation. NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones says nothing will happen until his party feels its coalition agreement has been met. GE Free NZ comments on the situation here.

JAPAN DEREGULATION

Towards a world free from GM food: Asian Assembly and citizens ’ campaign in Japan
The GMO-FREE ZONE Movement 20th Anniversary Asian Assembly was held in Tokyo, Japan, in March 2026. Read the Conference Declaration here. Citizens from across Asia met and decided to work together in pursuit of a world free from GMO food. They noted how a wave of deregulation in Japan has led to no environmental impact or food safety checks on new GMOs — plus efforts to ban food labelling and even Non-GMO labelling. They’re fighting back. In Japan, as deregulation sweeps in at the national level, citizens have stepped up efforts at local and regional levels. They’ve worked with local assemblies to adopt resolutions calling for gene-edited food labelling, while enlarging GMO-free zones and working to stop local production of GMO food. In response to the promotion of gene-edited tomatoes, local campaigners successfully urged municipalities to stop the distribution of seedlings to schools and welfare facilities. They also supported local campaigns that led to the removal of gene-edited fish from the Hometown Tax program, a system that allows taxpayers to donate to municipalities in exchange for tax deductions and local “thank-you” gifts.

Consumers Union of Japan campaign on gene-edited foods

The Consumers Union of Japan (CUJ) has published an update on their campaign on GM gene-editing in Japan, including:
1) A campaign to get 12 Japanese supermarket chains to refuse to sell gene-edited tomatoes
2) “Label It!” — a food labelling campaign demanding mandatory labelling of all gene-edited foods.

UK DEREGULATION

UK: Concerns over “precision breeding” grow ahead of High Court hearing in May
The UK Government is soon to face a landmark legal challenge over its controversial legislation that allows the commercial cultivation and sale of GM gene-edited crops in England. In May, the High Court in London will consider whether the new rules, which were signed into law last year, unlawfully removed regulatory safeguards around genetic modification and failed to account for the potential risks to consumers, farmers, food businesses, and the environment. Under the revised regulations – which currently only apply to England and not the devolved nations – crops developed using new GM techniques such as gene editing are reclassified as “precision bred (PB) organisms” in cases where developers themselves claim the genetic changes could be possible through natural or conventional breeding. The claimants – Beyond GM – argue that mandatory safety assessment, traceability provisions, and consumer transparency protections were removed or weakened. They also argue that this revision downplays risks, including unintended genetic mutations and ecological impacts.

Gene editing deregulation – what comes next?
Two new briefings published by Beyond GM explore the likely next stages for the UK’s deregulation of gene editing. They reveal that gene-edited animals and microorganisms are the next frontiers in the removal of key safety and environmental regulations – but the picture is considerably more complicated than developers or the government may want us to believe. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025 have paved the way for the production and commercialisation of gene-edited “precision bred” GMO plants. But the broader regulatory framework in the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 also allows for the deregulation of precision bred GMO vertebrate animals. Even as the new regulations were being signed into law, there was an expectation – shared by industry, parts of government and some researchers – that new regulations for livestock would swiftly follow. Beyond GM’s new briefing on gene-edited livestock shows why that isn’t happening on the timetable originally planned and what the obstacles are.

Gene-edited high lipid barley marketing notice issued
The UK government has published a marketing notice (see link above) for a higher lipid GM gene-edited barley. The barley is intended as feed “to fatten up cows and get them to market faster”, in the words of a Daily Telegraph puff piece, titled without any factual justification, “Juicier steaks on the menu after gene-edited cow feed approved”. In itself, the marketing notice doesn’t permit marketing – it’s just a confirmation that the organism qualifies as “precision bred”. The barley, called “Golden Promise”, now has to go to the Food Standards Agency for food safety authorisation. It also seems that the barley will have to go through the usual plant variety trials to qualify it for inclusion on the national plant varieties and seeds list. Note: The barley hasn’t yet been fed to any cows, and in any case the fat content has been increased by only around 3%, so it’s unlikely to create any measurable increase in fattening. Nonetheless, it may have adverse health impacts, which haven’t been tested for and are highly unlikely to be looked for in any fattening studies that may be done.

New report: The UK Science Media Centre, the Food Standards Agency, and how to undermine trust in the food system
The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) is considering using the controversial Science Media Centre to help it raise awareness about so-called precision breeding, according to a disclosure made during its September 2025 board meeting. Just 5% of people know what “precision breeding” means – a shocking statistic given that the British public may soon be exposed to GMOs classified as precision bred following a recent change in the law. The Science Media Centre (SMC) has been credited with setting the science agenda in the press. It publishes briefings and fields scientists for media interviews and comments, including those involved in genetic modification. It has been described by GMWatch as a “government and corporate-funded PR messaging service” and the SMC and its still more controversial director have many critics.

Beyond GM calls on Scottish and Welsh parties to hold the line on GMO regulation
As voters in Scotland and Wales prepare to go to the polls in May, Beyond GM has published dedicated election briefings for both the Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections, calling on all parties to commit to maintaining and strengthening precautionary approaches to GMOs in food and farming. The briefings set out the regulatory, economic and democratic case for resisting Westminster pressure to align with England’s Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 and its 2025 Regulations – which failed to implement the labelling, traceability and environmental risk assessment requirements that have governed GMOs in the UK for decades.

NEW GMOs PIPELINE

New GMOs in cultivation and development – new report
A new report gives the lie to the notion that deregulating new GMOs will lead to an ample supply of gene-edited wonder crops being available in the marketplace. Even in countries that deregulated new GMOs some time ago (Canada, USA, Argentina, Japan), the technology’s record is unimpressive. Currently just three “new GMOs” are being cultivated in two countries, according to the report by Dr Eva Gelinsky for Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). In the USA, just two herbicide-tolerant and insecticidal maize varieties developed with CRISPR are being cultivated. But both varieties are also transgenic. In Japan, a CRISPR tomato with increased GABA content, intended to lower blood pressure, is on the market. In development there are 89 new GM crops which belong to 31 species.

Cibus says it’s on track to launch herbicide-tolerant rice
GMO crops are helping drive herbicide use, not reduce it. And new GMOs — via gene editing — are set to do exactly the same. Cibus says it’s on track to launch its rice with herbicide-tolerant traits in Latin America next year, followed by the US in 2028, and then Asia. Cibus says its new GMO herbicide-tolerant crops will cut the amount of herbicide needed to manage weeds. But first-generation GMO crops were introduced with the same promises and their adoption in the US INCREASED herbicide use from 1996-2011 by an estimated 239M kg – 239,000 tonnes!

PATENTS

Who owns the patents on “new GMOs”?
The patent landscape for “new GMOs” made with gene editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas is dominated by the big US agribusiness firms, Corteva, Bayer, and Pairwise; as well as the powerful academic institutions, the Broad Institute/MIT/Harvard and UC Berkeley and its spinout company Caribou Biosciences. While the main European “new GMO” patent holders are not in the same league as the US companies and institutions, they in no way qualify as small-to-medium-sized enterprises. They are led by the large multinational company KWS Saat, Limagrain/Vilmorin – the 4th largest seed company in the world, and the well-funded venture-backed company Tropic Biosciences, according to research by Antonio Onorati for European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC). See Antonio’s slide presentation at the link above. GMWatch’s conclusion is that – contrary to the claims of GMO promoters - “new GMOs” are, and always will be, a big boys’ game and will not democratise GM technologies, plant breeding or agriculture – quite the opposite.

TECHNO-FOOD

Alt protein investors are tired of waiting – they want confidence in the future
As the initial hype dies down, investors in meat alternatives want a return on their investment. Investor confidence has dropped as long timelines clash with revenue expectation. Corporates now view alternative protein supply chains as fragile. GMWatch comments that some “fake meat” products are made by genetically engineered organisms. “Fake meat” manufacture is resource- and energy-hungry.

GMWatch News Review archive

Review 597: New GMOs

SCIENCE