Precision Breeding Act: A Landmark Opportunity To Accelerate Varietal Improvement
- gillmcshane
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
UK crop science is heralding a historic milestone for scientists, plant breeders, and growers to use precision breeding techniques such as gene editing to improve productivity, climate resilience, and sustainability under new regulatory framework now in force.
The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 for plants in England came into effect on 13 November. It replaces previous rules inherited from the EU and distinguishes precision-bred organisms (PBOs) from traditional GMOs.
The new legislation is expected to establish a world-class, science-based structure for the development, release, and marketing of precision-bred plants.
This includes improving the way the UK develops and grows fruits and vegetables, as well as reducing the time and costs required to bring new varieties to market.
NIAB has welcomed the news, explaining it provides a more proportionate and science-based regulatory framework to allow targeted, precise changes to be made within a plant’s own DNA.
These changes, which could have occurred naturally or through conventional breeding, can now be achieved faster and more accurately, NIAB said.
“This is the first time in a generation that legislation has been brought forward which seeks to enable, rather than restrict, the use of advanced genetic technologies in UK agriculture,” explained Niab chief executive Professor Mario Caccamo.
“It will help accelerate the development of improved crop varieties with potential benefits for farmers, consumers and the environment.”
Produce Crops That Could Benefit
Fruit and vegetable production could benefit in various ways by enabling improved traits for raising yields, climate, disease, and pest resilience, greater nutritional value, longer shelf-life, and reduced allergens, among others.
Niab expects potential early applications to include a number of fruits and vegetables, including:
Higher-yielding strawberries with longer shelf life.
Nutritionally enhanced tomatoes and oilseeds.
Disease-resistant sugar beet and potatoes.
Tomatoes bred for robotic harvesting.
Higher yielding wheat and baby potatoes.
Non-browning bananas.
High-lipid barley designed to cut methane emissions in livestock.
“These innovations are already in the pipeline,” pointed out Professor Caccamo. “They show how precision breeding can help us produce healthier food with fewer inputs, while reducing food waste, tackling climate change and strengthening food security.”
An early adopter, the John Innes Centre previously described the legislation as “forward thinking” and of benefit to the health of people, plants, and the planet.
The organisation is using precision breeding techniques to develop tomatoes fortified with vitamin D which could help millions of people with vitamin D deficiency.
John Innes recently announced one of the first human trials of gene-edited food to understand whether biofortifying tomatoes leads to higher levels of vitamin D in the blood after consumption.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture (APPGSTA) also described the development as a landmark moment for British science, and called for the progress to mark the beginning of a new, pro-innovation agricultural policy agenda for the UK.
“From today we expect applications to come forward which will offer the potential to increase yields, reduce chemical inputs, enhance disease resistance, cut food waste and improve nutritional quality across a range of different crops,” said APPGSTA Chair, George Freeman MP.