England will be allowing gene-edited food to boost productivity and increase jobs.
They say the food is safe to eat based on other countries allowing gene-editing of food.
Would you be willing to eat gene-edited food?
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From that article, the problem is that I won’t know if I’m eating it or not
Because our government have said it doesn’t have to be labelled?
Which denies me any freedom to avoid it, but I would avoid it if I could
Yet another thing inflicted on us by the stupidity of Brexit by taking away the protection of EU regulations
This is the way it will go now, human rights, workers rights, food quality, animal welfare, the environment
We won’t be protected by EU rules and our government will only legislate watered down and limited protection to enhance the profits of the chumocracy at the expense of the rest of us
The Brexiter voters have a lot to answer for
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Agree with you 100% Mary!!
Thankfully Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have not followed the idiots in Westminster and I hope it stays that way, but this is terrible news for those of you in England - they’re basically forcing it upon you, your kids and your grandchildren.
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We’ve all been eating hybrid fruit and vegetables all our lives as in F1 hybrids …
As I understand GE is quicker and also allows for the removal of unwanted genes .
I’d be more worried about eating GM crops.
However should unidentified GE happen in my lifetime I shall definitely grow a few more vegetables in my small garden
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I suppose if Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland hold out, one way of trying to avoid it might be to only buy food produced there?
And also food from the EU countries, avoiding anything produced in England?
What a shame that would be but if our government is not only going to allow it to be produced here but not insist it’s labelled, then that might be the only way to minimise our consumption of it
Hopefully they wouldn’t produce GE food specifically to sell in England! 
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We have had an unknown Virus, we have had an unknown remedy, so I guess a bit of unknown fodder won’t make much difference. 
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Very true spitfire.
I do think it should be labelled though,typical of this government.
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I noticed the BBC in their wisdom have underlined and printed in bold that it is not common in the EU…Probably because they have not informed anyone that they are producing it like us in England. At least we have had it brought to our attention.
Genetic modification (GM), which has been common in most parts of the world for more than 20 years, though not in the European Union (EU).
It’s a pity the EU wasn’t so fussy about covid vaccines…Something that really is dangerous to ones health…
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When it comes to this I am more worried about cost to the environment than cost to human health. When we start tinkering with nature we can never understand the consequences because there are too many variables and the average human brain can handle two variables at most. Just creating problems for biodiversity in the future.
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Absolutely Annie, nearly all of humans interference in nature has thrown up more problems than it solved.
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Anyone who’s ever watched a sci fi apocalypse film knows this is going to upset the eco system, cause a catastrophe and it all ends up in Soylent Green and tears
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As long as it don’t make us here and now “Throw Up”.
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It does exist because they eat seedless bananas. Bananas have been modified for decades by what they would class as cloning. Just a play on words so as not to admit to allowing modified fruit into their markets. This also applies to seedless grapes etc as well as seedless bananas.
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Countries around the World are currently looking at their legislation regarding Genetically Modified crops and trying to keep pace with the recent advances in gene technology - many of them have already amended their laws or are currently looking at impact studies and options of amending their laws to distinguish between the longer established techniques of transgenic GM, which involves transferring genes from one species to another, and the more recent developments of Gene Editing, involving gene editing within the same species.
I don’t think it will be long before the EU amend their regulations regarding Gene Edited crops too, in a similar way to England have done.
The EU have been undertaking an impact assessment, which is due to conclude this year and it has been suggested that the EU will loosen its strict policy on at least some forms of gene editing techniques.
Recent surveys in Europe showed similar results in public feeling as surveys in U.K. showed - it was felt that modifying a plants own DNA (cisgenics) was more acceptable than transgenic GM plants.
At an EU Council meeting in September 2022, EU agriculture ministers raised the possibility of revising the rules on gene editing. The ministers largely agree that the use of precision techniques that make it easier and faster to modify a plant’s own DNA (cisgenics) could strengthen the EU’s food sector and increase its resilience in the face of climate and geopolitical crises.
Numerous countries are interested in pursuing controlled trials. 20 member states are reportedly in favour of relaxing the 2018 regulations, which put GE crops into the same category as all GM crops, while six countries want to hew to a precautionary approach.
Whilst I am naturally inclined to a precautionary approach, there has already been a number of trials of Gene Edited plants around the world and for some crops currently under threat of being wiped out, they may not have the luxury of time on their side.
Another problem is, humans haven’t let nature take its course for centuries - we have already messed about with food crops and the environment by intervening in cross-breeding to a point where some food crops no longer have natural defences to endemic pests or disease - and that happened without using any modern GM techniques - over the years our practice of cross-breeding plants for the traits we want, practising monoculture and clearing land of wild-growing plant species, we have already greatly reduced plant diversity and natural gene mutation which enables plants to develop resistance over time from threats of pest damage or climate change.
For example, the way we have cross-bred bananas in monoculture environments has brought banana crops to a perilous position around the world now that a particular fungus which destroys them has become endemic in all the banana-growing areas around the world.
The banana plants have been cross-bred by the old traditional methods to produce the soft fruit we want without all the seeds produced by wild varieties. They are now cross-bred to the point where they are sterile hybrids - their fruit is sterile and the banana producers rely on taking cuttings to reproduce banana plants - in effect, banana plants are all clones of each other thus all the banana plant DNA is the same and there is no longer any chance of natural genetic mutations developing banana plants with a resistance to the fungus which kills them.
Ironically, it is thought that the only way that banana crops will survive now is by making use of the modern technique of Genetic Editing to introduce fungus-resistant genes from inedible wild bananas into the sterile banana plants.
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After all that waffle, I’ve realised I didn’t even answer the question! 
Would I eat genetically edited food?
I’d like to say No, but I think I might - if these trials on the banana plantations in Central America prove successful, I imagine that all future banana plants will be reproduced from genetically edited parent plants, so I’d have to choose between eating GE food crops or never eating a banana ever again! 
I was reading that the worst damage has already been done in the last century. No surprise that the planet has problems.
So without humans bananas would completely die out?
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The type of bananas we eat would die out - they are sterile hybrids.
There is some wild strains of bananas about but the fruits are full of seeds, so not very pleasant to eat.
Edited to add - the fungus that is becoming endemic in banana-growing areas has also been found to destroy species of wild bananas too.
I am not sure how many species of wild bananas there is but some species must have developed fungus-resistant genes, if the scientists have found the genetic material and isolated the gene sequence.
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Good posts Boot. It would appear that we have probably been eating GM or modified food for years. It’s just that now they have admitted it…I believe Wheat, corn, barley etc have been made hybrid - drought, bug and disease resistant years ago. Add to this the methods used for preservation to allow it to be transported half way around the world and keep it looking fresh on the supermarket shelf. How many times have we heard that food just doesn’t taste like it used to? There’s no wonder.