Published: 28-10-2023
Genetically engineered organisms in agriculture are, first and foremost, a food system and environmental issue. In recent years the UK government has sought to recontextualise them as a science and innovation issue divorced from their real world uses and consequences. Our 2024 manifesto calls for GMOs to be put back in their rightful context and for this to be the basis for rational policy and regulation of agricultural genetic technologies.
Published: 29-06-2023
Do agroecological farmers need to ‘tech up’ to be more sustainable? Our Agroecological Intelligence project, brings together UK farmers from across the agroecological spectrum – including as organic, biodynamic, permaculture, food sovereignty, nature friendly, pasture-fed and regenerative – with the aim of understanding what they want from technology and how they make choices around it. Read the interim report.
Published: 26-09-2022
Citizen views are integral to ensuring that technologies and science responds to the needs and wants of society at large. Our new review concludes it’s time to make meaningful citizen engagement part of the DNA of the regulatory process.
Published: 18-01-2022
A new analysis by A Bigger Conversation suggests that, in its haste to deregulate agricultural gene technologies, the UK government is “choosing to get it wrong” by ignoring expertise from all sides.
Published: 29-05-2021
EU and UK attempts to change genome editing regulations could have opened the door to interesting, even productive discussions. Instead they have further entrenched the unhelpful polarisation of early GMO debates.
Published: 04-03-2021
During this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference Global 21 we took the opportunity to conduct a short survey to ascertain which potential threats to agroecology from genome editing (GE) most […]
Published: 05-10-2020
The results of our latest survey indicate that amongst the UK’s food and farming organisations, a new dynamic is at play which is less cohesive, less engaged, more cautious or hesitant than was expressed by many of these same groups in the early days of genetic engineering in agriculture.
Published: 18-09-2020
The lay public, those who are paying members or who donate regularly to conservation causes, would expect conservation organisations, both big and small, to be getting to grips with genome editing. Our survey suggests this is not the case.
Published: 14-09-2020
Our Citizen’s Attitudes to Genome Editing in Food and Farming survey examined the attitudes on genome editing in food and farming – and in particular issues around regulation. Some of the answers were all too familiar, but some showed a greater understanding and willingness to consider nuance.
Published: 07-07-2020
Our upcoming webinar brings together specialists from farming, campaigning, science, business and media for an in-depth discussion about whether gene editing is not just desirable but necessary if farming is to reach its goals of higher sustainability and better welfare.
