Associations / NGO

Three groups of French and European organizations have publicly called on political leaders not to abolish labelling and traceability requirements for GMOs produced using new techniques. In their view, maintaining these obligations is the only way to guarantee freedom of choice for farmers and consumers, and to protect the seed and peasant sectors from contamination and attempts by multinationals to take control of living organisms.

At the beginning of April, the Tirpaa again discussed the expansion of the list of crops covered by the multilateral system and the revision of the contract governing their use. While some Member States of the Treaty are invoking the need to guarantee global food security, fears are being voiced that there will be a drift in widespread access to peasant and traditional seeds. This would facilitate their patenting, without any real sharing of the benefits, to the detriment of the countries of the “South” and the rights of the peasants.

As the trialogue on the proposed deregulation of GMOs got underway on 6 May between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Member States of the European Union, French organisations are once again warning of the potential “serious and irreversible consequences of this text”.
Alternatiba Rennes, one of the signatories of this letter, has also taken action in the public arena.

“Artificial intelligence” (AI) is used to extract and restructure information from raw or unstructured data. Companies are using it to identify phenotypic traits associated with genetic sequences. Referring to a recent patent application by the company Inari, the German NGO Testbiotech points out the risks associated with the combination of new genomic modification techniques (NGT) and AI. It condemns the possible abuses of patentability and the need for robust GMO regulations. However, Inari has already filed other similar applications, which raises questions about the legal impact of such rights and their adaptation to AI-driven technologies.

The digitization of living organisms is the subject of a growing number of projects. Computer data, generated and stored in ever-larger “data centers”, are used by “artificial intelligence” matrices. These data are of all kinds: genetic sequences, proteins, etc. In these fields, which require increasing natural resources, investments are multiplying.

In February 2025, two statements opposing the European Commission’s proposal to deregulate GMOs were published. On 11 February 2025, more than 200 organisations, including farming unions, NGOs, small and medium-sized breeders, and players in the organic and non-GMO sectors, published a “joint declaration on the deregulation of new GMOs”. On 21 February 2025, more than 70 French players in the organic sector published a collective opinion piece online in Mediapart.

Patents involving the use of nanos* in agriculture have multiplied over the last 20 years. However, there has been no improvement in the availability of information in this field. A recent report, commissioned by AVICENN and published by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), re-emphasizes the need to change European regulations in order to better identify, assess and manage nanos in the fields and the food. AVICENN is calling for greater transparency on the marketing and risks of nanomaterials that have long been used in agriculture.

Since July 2023, the issue of patents on living organisms has been at the heart of debates in the European Union. These debates were sparked by the European Commission’s proposal to stop assessing the risks associated with GMOs, to stop labelling them as such, and to put an end to their detection and identification. In December 2024, a conference allowed several stakeholders of the debate to express their opinion.

In July 2023, the proposal to deregulate GMOs obtained using new genetic modification techniques (known as “new genomic techniques” – NGTs) highlighted a sensitive issue that is still under discussion: patents. Patents are fiercely criticised for their many negative effects on the rights of farmers and traditional seed producers, as well as on biodiversity. A report commissioned by the European Green Party addresses this issue and suggests ways out of the impasse.

In January 2025, Poland, president of the Council of Europe, put a proposal on the table of EU member states to “solve” the patent problem that had arisen in the debate on deregulating GMOs obtained by new techniques. Complex and of uncertain effectiveness, the Polish proposal has plunged everyone into doubt. Discussions on this text may therefore not be concluded before Denmark, whose government supports total deregulation of GMOs, takes over the presidency of the European Union.

At a time when the European Union is preparing new regulations on seeds, a look at the meetings between MEPs and the various stakeholders indirectly shows the weight of the multinationals in these procedures. This raises questions about the imbalance in the representation of these parties and the potential consequences for small seed companies, farmers and peasants.