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New precision-breeding law unlocks gene editing in England

Nature Biotechnology volume 41, pages 752–753 (2023)Cite this article

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On 23 March 2023, the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill received Royal Assent and became an Act of Parliament in the UK. This Act is aimed at modernizing crop and animal breeding and represents an important milestone, as it is the first time in decades that new legislation in the UK seeks to enable — rather than restrict — the use of advanced genetic technologies for agriculture and food production. Precision breeding will fast-track the introduction of multiple traits, reducing the time that it takes to bring new crops to market and aligning England with countries such as Argentina, Australia, Japan, Canada and the USA, where tools such as gene editing are used to develop more nutritious and climate-ready crops. However, innovators, breeders and growers will need to be confident that deploying technologies such as gene editing for crop breeding will not be penalized by unjustifiably stringent near-market requirements.

This law states that new crop varieties or animal breeds that are created using a technology that introduces genetic changes that could have occurred in nature or via traditional breeding methods should not be regulated as genetically modified organisms. The legislation therefore establishes a new category of ‘precision-bred organisms’ in which the use of gene-editing techniques does not result in the introduction of foreign DNA.

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  1. NIAB, Cambridge, UK

    Mario Caccamo

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  1. Mario Caccamo
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Correspondence to Mario Caccamo.

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Caccamo, M. New precision-breeding law unlocks gene editing in England. Nat Biotechnol 41, 752–753 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01795-8

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