A research team including scientists from Germany, Sweden, The
Netherlands, and the United States of America has made a plea for the
European Union to allow novel breeding techniques such asgene editingin
organic agriculture to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs).

In a paper published in/Trends in Plant Science/, the team said that
Europe's Farm to Fork strategy will likely fail to deliver on its
promise of realizing the SDGs unless novel breeding techniques are used
in organic agriculture. They said that organic farming and modern
biotechnologyboth have their specific strengths in contributing to the
SDGs and combining both approaches could unleash important synergies.

When the SDGs were launched in 2015, the European Commission (EC)
committed itself to these goals, which have to be reached in 2030. By
implementing its Farm to Fork strategy, the EC at the same time wants to
boost the development of EU organic farming areas with the aim to
achieve 25% of total farmland under organic farming by 2030.

Co-author Justus Wesseler, professor of Agricultural Economics and Rural
Policy at Wageningen University and Research said, "The global demand
for high-quality food increases. More organic farming in the EU can
therefore result in an expansion of agricultural land elsewhere in the
world, which might lead to environmental costs that exceed any local
environmental benefits in the EU."

Scientists urge EU to allow the use of novel breeding techniques and
modern biotechnology in organic farming - WUR
[www.wur.nl]