It looks like we’ll be back in court in soon – and our work to challenge the government’s precision breeding Regulations has continued throughout the summer.
In the mean time here’s an update and some things you can do to help.
Earlier this year, the court found that the government’s Precision Breeding Regulations were unlawful. That was a huge victory. We return to court in November for a hearing to determine what remedy should follow from that ruling.
A change in government and the summer timetable have contributed to the time between hearings and, in the interim, the government has rashly continued to implement the regulations.
Since the judgment, it has issued ‘marketing notices’ for gene-edited wheat, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes and bananas – with the first confirmations signed just four days after our court victory. Five further notices for environmental releases of gene-edited cabbage and oilseed rape have also been published. These do not, as some newspapers have reported, mean that PBO foods will soon be in our supermarkets. There are several steps before this happens, and therefore several opportunities to intervene.
But these developments show why securing the judgment was only the first step. The system we successfully challenged continues to operate, leaving unresolved the concerns at the heart of our case: transparency, traceability and the ability of farmers, food businesses and consumers to make informed choices.
The November hearing is the next important step, but our legal challenge does not end there. We are building on the evidence gathered since the judgment and working with our legal team on further action. We will share more details when we can.
Your generous support helped us secure the first ruling. It remains essential as we work to ensure that victory leads to meaningful protection in practice.
Please donate. Current and future legal actions require substantial resources. Please help us sustain this work by donating to our legal fund and sharing this update with others who also believe that we all have a right to know what we are eating.
There are other ways you can help, too.
Write to your MP Your MP can help by writing to the Secretary of State, passing on your concerns and expressing support for transparency and labelling. Use our e-action tool to write to your MP or parliamentary representative and ask them what steps they will take to ensure any revision of the Regulations includes meaningful transparency, traceability and labelling measures. Ask them, too, if they will support the core principles set out in Beyond GM’s Citizens’ Charter. This initiative is already off to a flying start but we need many more people to join in. It doesn’t take long and it does meaningful work in letting the government know what the people want.
Help break the silence Despite the significance of this judgment, we cannot rely on the mainstream media – which has been reporting industry talking points without comment, question or critique for years – to report the story fairly, if at all. Please consider forwarding our press release and judgment summary to your local newspaper, local radio station, community newsletter, farming publication or environmental group. The more people who understand what the Court found, the harder it will be for these issues to be ignored.
Together we can move this issue forward.