A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: New modified organisms are coming (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

While the farmers' protest continues, even if the media after the 
initial attention given to it now seems to ignore it, the approval on 7 
February last, by the European Parliament in plenary session, of the 
proposal put forward by the European Commission to Regulation for new 
genomic techniques (NGT), in Italy called TEA (Assisted Evolution 
Techniques), a vote that was certainly not unanimous with 307 votes in 
favour, 263 against and 41 abstentions. As for the Italians in the 
chamber, the delegations of FdI (Ecr group), Lega (Id), Italia Viva 
(Renew), Forza Italia (EPP) voted solidly in favor and against the 5 
Star Movement and the Greens. The Democratic Party instead split in two, 
with the positive vote among others from the former agriculture minister 
Paolo De Castro, who is part of the Agriculture Commission. The game is 
still open because now the opinion of the EU Council, i.e. the 
Agriculture Ministers of the member states, is needed, but nothing good 
is expected and the text could even undergo a further deterioration. 
«NGTs are fundamental to strengthening Europe's food security and 
greening our agricultural production. The new rules will allow the 
development of improved plant varieties that will guarantee higher 
yields, be climate resistant or require fewer fertilizers and 
pesticides", highlighted the rapporteur of the text, Swedish MEP Jessica 
Polfjard (EPP).

By virtue of this new regulation, plants whose DNA has been manipulated 
would no longer belong to a single category, that of GMOs, but would be 
classified into two distinct groups. Category 1 Ngts if the genetic 
modifications, states the text, "could also be present in nature or 
produced through conventional reproduction", i.e. they are obtained only 
with targeted mutagenesis and cisgenesis techniques (including 
intragenesis) and include a number of limited modifications. And 
category 2 NGTs if the modifications also include transgenesis or are in 
high numbers. Targeted mutagenesis is a technique that produces DNA 
mutations without inserting foreign genetic material, i.e. the changes 
occur within the same plant species. Targeted cisgenesis, on the other 
hand, inserts new genetic material coming from an organism that is 
sexually compatible with the recipient organism, that is, between 
"naturally compatible" plants such as two types of citrus fruits. 
Intragenesis inserts combinations of different sequences coming from a 
donor that belongs to the same species as the recipient or to a closely 
related species. Transgenesis, on the other hand, is a technique that 
introduces genetic material into a plant coming from a species 
considered non-crossable, such as a banana and a tomato. So while the 
existing rules for GMOs would remain valid for NGT 2, this would not 
happen for NGT 1 and they would be exempt from the rules on labelling, 
traceability and risk assessment provided for by EU legislation on GMOs. 
Legislation which, moreover, already protects us only partially, just 
think that it is allowed to use feed containing GMO vegetables, such as 
soy and corn, in animal breeding and there is no labeling of meat that 
highlights this. The ban on the use of Ngt 1 in organic farming would be 
maintained and the patent ban on these new varieties for which a 
register containing them would then have to be drawn up. Or at least 
this is what emerges from the news available at the moment, given that a 
complete official text cannot be found.

Of course it is not easy to understand, for those without scientific 
knowledge, what it is about but what is understood well is the fact that 
once again they want to introduce a new technology, the impact of which 
on the health of beings is not known. living beings and of man and on 
the environment, as a panacea to increase the ability of plants to 
resist and adapt, to face the climate crisis and to guarantee food for 
the increasingly numerous human population. These are the same reasons 
given when GMOs were placed on the market, which not only did not solve 
the problem of world hunger but also increased the use of pesticides as 
most of the genetically modified organisms produced are resistant 
organisms to pesticides which can thus be used indiscriminately with the 
many negative consequences whose effects we see today.

If these new organisms were put into circulation, the precautionary 
principle which provides that new foods can be placed on the market only 
after their harmlessness has been reasonably proven would be superseded. 
Harmlessness denied by a growing body of scientific literature which 
attests to the potentially negative effects of these techniques and the 
harmful impact of biocontamination on traditional and organic crops. All 
this should be accompanied by a "scientific precaution principle" for 
which the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental 
Responsibility together with other non-governmental organizations is 
fighting. They state that one cannot act on nature based on dogmas that 
are false or that adopt a superficial and uncritical way of thinking. In 
fact, one of the assumptions on which these new organisms are based is 
the fact that it is possible to act on the genetic material by modifying 
it in a precise way, but the technique adopted, CRISPR-Cas9, is far from 
precise as demonstrated by the fact that numerous off-target genetic 
mutations, so much so that in the laboratory a large number of cells are 
used and then at the end of the process those in which the desired 
mutation has been obtained are selected. Furthermore, it is not certain 
that a mutation has a single effect, but knowing all the effects of a 
mutation would require years of experimentation; so when you manage to 
map a gene that controls an effect considered usable, you simply test it 
and don't 'waste time' looking for others. The other incorrect 
assumption is that the characteristics of an individual depend solely 
and exclusively on his DNA, a deterministic vision contradicted by the 
multiple epigenetic studies that document how the interaction with the 
external context influences the expression of genes. Those who consider 
living beings as systems on which one can act as if they were machines 
for which every action corresponds to one and only one reaction, deny 
what is plain for all those who want to see it: the unpredictability of 
the multiple consequences linked to introduction of these organisms into 
the complexity of an ecosystem. Unpredictability demonstrated by the 
numerous failures and deleterious effects linked to the spread of GMO 
crops. Just as it is clearly false to state that the organisms produced 
with these techniques are comparable to those present in nature or to 
those obtained with traditional techniques, such as grafts, in fact it 
is not clear why a smaller number of genetic modifications should be 
less dangerous than a greater number , nor is it clear how this number 
can be established.

Finally, the amendment that introduced limits to the patentability of 
these new organisms is completely useless because to be applied it would 
require a modification of the biotechnology directive and the European 
patent convention with a process that could take years. Just as the ban 
on the use of Ngt 1 in organic crops appears useless when their 
cultivation in the open field could give rise to contamination phenomena 
that cannot be contained. What else is needed to affirm that 
techno-science risks becoming a nightmare from which we risk waking up 
when it is too late, as has already happened many times before?

Brunella Missorici

http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en