b'IF THE FUTURE COULD WHISPER, WHAT WOULD IT SAY? CRISPR!NEW INTERACTIVE, OPEN-ACCESS EU-SAGE DATABASE AIMS TO KEEP EU STAKEHOLDERS INFORMED ON GENOME EDITINGS CROP APPLICATIONSBY: OANA DIMAT he European Commission published onFIGURE 1: GENOME EDITING APPLICATIONS IN CROPS BRING 5 July, 2023 its long-awaited legislativeBENEFITS FOR PRODUCERS AND/OR CONSUMERSproposal for the regulation of plants pro-duced by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs). Though it is too early to draw con- 5.6% 2.2%clusions on the legal aspects, the proposal8.1%hints towards a science-based approach for22.3%the regulation of genome editing applica-tions in crops in Europe. It has been a long and bumpy road of policy developments7.2%since the CJUE court case (C-528/16).Plant scientists in Europe have been raising concerns on the current EU status of crops obtained through NGTs, which is based on outdated EU legislation that no longer reflects the current state of scien- 13.7%tific evidence and progress. The European Sustainable Agriculture through Genome Editing (EU-SAGE) [website: https:// 22.6%www.eu-sage.eu/our_network_list ] net-work, representing researchers from lead-ing European plant science institutes and learned societies, was established to build18.4%awareness of the potential of genome edit- EU-SAGE Improved food/feed qualitying in Europe and to urge the European institutions to develop new policies to sup- Plant yield and growthport genome editing in plant breeding toBiotic stress and growthenable more sustainable agriculture andIndustrial utilisationfood production. Herbicide toleranceAbiotic stress toleranceProduct flavour/colourStorage performance32ISEED WORLD EUROPEIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'