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In the United States, a legal battle between two seed companies, Corteva and Inari, has highlighted a contradiction in the patent system. Whilst intended to encourage innovation in exchange for the disclosure of inventions, patents can also complicate access to the biological material needed for research and the creation of new varieties. In May 2026, the US Department of Justice intervened to highlight the competition and innovation issues linked to access to patented seeds. However, the dispute will not proceed to trial, as the companies signed an out-of-court settlement on 27 September 2026, the main terms of which remain confidential. A missed opportunity to obtain judicial clarification on the use of patented biological material by a third party.

Unlike the European Union, in the United States, GMOs produced using new techniques of genetic modification (NGTs) are subject to federal legislation on GMOs. They may be subject to a risk assessment and, since 2018, to labelling and traceability requirements. Although the US administration sought to deregulate them in 2020, a court ruling in December 2024 cancelled this exemption.

In late July 2026, an article published in the journal Science revealed, more than a year after the event took place, the death of a six-year-old girl following a gene therapy trial in China. This therapy was based on new techniques of genetic modification (so-called new genomic techniques – NGT) and used viral vectors to deliver the gene modifying material to the target cells.

On Monday, September 21, 2026, at the Montpellier Court, the seat reserved for Syngenta’s lawyer was empty. And with good reason: the multinational – a subsidiary of the Chinese holding company Sinochem – had decided to withdraw its appeal against the civil-court acquittal won by the Faucheurs volontaires in the initial trial in Perpignan in […]

The European Commission wants to deregulate genetically modified bacteria, yeasts and viruses in order to reduce the time it takes for them to be placed on the market, the risk assessments carried out on them, and the information provided to operators and the public… This is the package of measures proposed from December 2025! Under the guise of a so-called urgent need for action, the Commission has cut corners by failing to consult the public on this issue and by withholding certain documents, including a key “impact assessment”.

Whilst the algorithms of the GAFAM companies are seeking, day by day, to gain ever greater control over our internet searches and, ultimately, over our choice of news sources and our free will, some thirty figures from the french independent press are calling on readers to defend media pluralism.

The argument that the European Union must catch up with other countries by deregulating GMOs produced using new genetic modification techniques (GMOs/NGTs) is repeated ad nauseam by their proponents. However, at the end of 2025, an OECD report reviewed the legislation in force in some of the largest GMO-producing countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the United States, etc.). And the least one can say is that the international legislative landscape is highly varied.

New genetic modification techniques (NGTs) are presented by their proponents as a mean of promoting innovation in seed production and broadening farmers’ choices. However, the US experience shows that deregulating GMOs is not enough to make them accessible to users. According to a 2023 report by the US Department of Agriculture, the significant increase in patent fees on GMOs is hindering access to seeds in general. Europe, which has just adopted its regulation on GMOs produced using NGTs, arguing that it is necessary to boost variety innovation, was nevertheless aware of this report on the situation in the US.

In an article published in Philosophies in July 2026, Grégori de Souza and Jelson Roberto de Oliveira argue that, from a philosophical standpoint, the genetic manipulation of plants raises new ethical questions. Biotechnology transforms living things into objects. In doing so, they assert, it alters the ontological foundations of life and calls for an ethic of responsibility that extends to the entire biosphere.