THE Scottish Greens have urged the Scottish Government not to follow the UK Government’s lead in allowing sugar beet farmers to use a bee-killing pesticide. Earlier this week, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) approved an emergency application for thiamethoxam, a neonicotinoid seed treatment. It was one of three treatments whose use outdoors was banned across the EU over concerns of the impacts on bee populations. Studies suggest neonicotinoids weakens bees’ immune systems, and can harm their development, leaving them unable to fly, gather food and breed. Defra has said their U-turn on thiamethoxam was only granted because it was “exceptional circumstances where diseases or pests cannot be controlled by any other reasonable means”.
GENE EDITING involves accentuating or suppressing genes withn an organism s own natural genetic sequence PERMISSION for gene editing in agriculture is back on the political agenda, following the launch of a Defra consultation on a potential change in UK law to allow the technology into the food chain. Under current European law, Gene Editing is lumped together with Genetic Modification, and as such is excluded from use in producing novel crop plants and livestock. Defra is touting the GE consultation as an early consequence of its post-Brexit independence from EU law, potentially giving UK farmers a tech edge over their continental counterparts.
Because of the Internal Market Bill, Scotland will have to allow the sale of genetically edited food if England decides to change its laws SCOTLAND may soon be “forced to accept the marketing, sale and free circulation” of genetically modified food as England looks to change its own laws in the area post-Brexit, the Scottish Government has warned. The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has today launched a public consultation on the use of gene editing on both livestock and arable crops. Gene editing (GE) is slightly different from genetic modification (GM). While the latter involves inserting new genes into a DNA strand, GE involves the cutting and removing of undesirable parts of genes.