“Urs Niggli is one of the most prominent thinkers in organic farming. For decades, the Swiss agricultural scientist has championed the importance of healthy soils, biodiversity, and agriculture that works with nature, not against it. But Urs Niggli also says: Genome editing is necessary in agriculture. He argues that it will make conventional farming more efficient and sustainable, while organic farming, with its lower yields, cannot guarantee food security for the world's population.
What Niggli is advocating will soon happen—assuming approval from the EU Parliament and Council: Plant varieties developed using the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing tool will be approved more quickly across the EU, and they, or the products made from them, will not have to be labeled as such in stores.
Environmental organizations and consumer associations oppose this. Agribusiness corporations and the farmers' association approve. So far, so predictable. Nevertheless, as Urs Niggli's case demonstrates, the lines of conflict are not as clear-cut as in conventional agriculture.” Genetic engineering involves inserting foreign genetic material into a genome. The best-known example is genetically modified corn, which already contains a toxin to protect against pests. Rejecting plants created using gene editing means prioritizing the process over the end product, said Urs Niggli in an interview with the magazine "Spektrum der Wissenschaft" (Spectrum of Science).
Indeed, concerns, fears, and support can be explained by the dual perspective that gene editing allows: one sees the process or the result. The EU agreement also focuses on the product and equates plants whose genome has been altered by targeted cuts, to which they respond with cellular repair processes, with conventionally bred plants. Indeed, the two are usually indistinguishable at the molecular level. The modification is seen as a mutation, such as could occur naturally: a particularly effective method of optimizing plants, as has been done in agriculture for thousands of years. Anyone who views the technology in this way can, as the EU negotiators stated in their A press release enthusiastically announces that farmers can now cultivate crops that are resistant to climate change, produce higher yields on less land, and improve farmers' competitiveness. Other countries have long had less stringent regulations. However, a look at what these regulations have produced reveals that it's more about conveniences like "seedless grapes": In the US, lettuce stays fresh longer, in China, they are working on sweeter tomatoes, and in Japan, a tomato has a blood pressure-lowering effect. There's even a fish there that develops more flesh.
People who are supposed to eat tomatoes certainly wouldn't object to them in principle. In Germany, however, they are more concerned with how these tomatoes were produced—as was the case with the European Court of Justice, which ruled in 2018 that plants modified using gene editing must be classified as genetically modified. For years, every survey has confirmed that the German population is uneasy about genetic engineering. More than two-thirds oppose its use in agriculture and food production. In a 2021 survey, 65 percent were against relaxing the rules for new genetically modified plants. Genetic engineering techniques, specifically CRISPR/Cas9.
The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, which advocates for plant breeding using gene editing, has examined the most frequently cited reservations regarding genetically modified crops. At the top of the list: it is perceived as unnatural. One could argue that the concept of naturalness is generally problematic in agriculture and that consumer perceptions often don't align with reality. The naturalness of monocultures in fields and factory-based meat production can also be questioned. However, the intuition that products from nature should ideally remain close to nature must be taken seriously. The fact that labeling of genetically modified plants in supermarkets is not planned will further increase distrust of them and make the necessary objective assessment of the technology more difficult." [1]
As of early 2026, the legislative process is ongoing, with efforts to break the deadlock over how to handle patents and regulatory oversight for these new techniques.
1. Der Weg der Tomate: Konfliktlinien beim Genscheren-Plan. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 06 Dec 2025: 11. PETRA AHNE
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