View into a greenhouse with a genetically processed wheat plant of the Taifun variety.
Image: Daniel Pilar
Pests are combated with pesticides, which affects nature and biodiversity. There has long been a sustainable solution: Genome editing can make plants more resistant and healthier – and it is faster than today’s breeding. A vision.
E.It is high time to make genome editing possible for plant breeding in Germany. The “Crispr / Cas9” method is extremely promising for the development of new crops, but has not really been approved here in Germany or the EU. The story of plants is different from that of medicine: Although reservations about genetic engineering in medicine were dispelled in the 1980s because its performance was impressive, its use in agriculture in Germany is still a red rag to this day. And this despite the fact that genetically engineered varieties are grown on a huge scale with advantage in other countries and so far not a single case of direct harm to humans, animals and the environment caused by such plants has been proven. Reason dictates that such breeds should be permitted because, apart from the economic benefit through higher yields, they can make a very important contribution to nature conservation, the preservation of biodiversity and the avoidance of insect death. I would like to go back a little on this:
Large parts of our country are not natural – they are purely cultural landscapes in which food for humans and animals is produced. The crops are bred to a high degree, that is, mutated many times, and genetically modified in long-term selection processes, adapted to high yields.
.
#Accusation #Nobel #Laureate #Reason #dictates #gene #scissors #organic #farming