Europe’s Embrace of Next Generation 
Technology a Huge Step Forward
PARTNER CONTENT
BY ENID PEREZ-LARA, INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT LEADER, AGRONOMIX SOFTWARE, INC.
I 
have defended genetically modified crops since I was a stu­
dent, when people first warned me that large transnational 
companies would take over and make food more expensive. 
That's always possible. But my thoughts, then and now, are with 
the people who consume that food. The Irish potato famine was 
triggered by late blight, a disease that wiped out the crop mil­
lions depended on. With today's tools, and if regulations allow 
it, we could develop resistant varieties within a few years.
People fear transgenics largely because scientists aren't 
always articulate. We don't always explain things so someone 
with minimal knowledge can follow. We get so deep into the 
science that we end up speaking over people's heads — making 
it easy for someone more articulate to sound credible while 
spreading misinformation and turning the technology into some­
thing monstrous.
As a scientist, I'm not afraid of transgenics. I know how the 
technology works, and that approved products are assessed 
case by case and shown as safe as their conventional counter­
parts. Growing up in Cuba, under severe economic hardship, I 
saw firsthand how important agricultural biotechnology was to 
produce food with minimal inputs. Transgenic research and early 
crop developments served us well.
The EU's New Genomic Techniques (NGT) framework, 
adopted in 2026 as Regulation (EU) 2026/1388, sets new rules 
for using technologies like CRISPR to improve crops. It splits 
NGT plants into two categories. Category 1 covers plants 
equivalent to conventional ones — those with limited, targeted 
changes, such as substitutions or insertions of no more than 
20 nucleotides. Once verified, these plants are exempt from 
GMO requirements, though seeds must be labelled as NGT, 
and uses like herbicide tolerance and organic production 
are excluded. Plants outside these limits fall into Category 2, 
under full GMO rules. The framework applies from July 2028, 
helping meet the needs of a growing population faster. I'm 
excited about that.
As scientists, we need a simple way to explain to the 
public how closely related the edited plant is to the genetic 
material used. Under Category 1, we're not inserting a fish 
gene into a tomato — the rules cover changes to a plant's 
own DNA, or material from a plant it could be crossed with, 
changes that occur naturally or through conventional breed­
ing. What we're doing is shortening the time needed to 
develop traits for a rapidly changing climate.
As a plant breeder, I'm proud of the work we do at 
Agronomix to support breeders putting these techniques to 
work. Breeders need large, well-curated genomic datasets to 
make critical decisions quickly. Our genomic prediction tools 
help them identify promising genes and plants in large pop­
ulations and decide earlier — because releasing improved 
varieties sooner will matter more than ever.
OCTOBER 2026  |  SEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE  I  SEED WORLD EUROPE   I   63

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