Thomas Stoddard used this pitch — “You make a little more money, you have a great experience, and you are part of a revolution” — when he recruited farmers to plant a gene-edited soybean variety developed by Calyxt to yield a healthier oil, says the MIT Technology Review. Calyxt says gene-edited plants, which are exempt from USDA regulations on GMOs, can reach the farm in half the time and at half the expense seed companies usually face when developing a new GMO.
“To GMO opponents, the new, unregulated plants are a source of alarm,” says the MIT Review. The leader of the nonprofit ETC Group says the industry is “constructing a definition of a GMO so that gene editing falls outside it,” opening the door to the unlimited genetic modification of food crops. There is no global consensus. New Zealand, for example, says gene-edited plants are GMOs, but Sweden and the Netherlands say they are not. China and the EU haven’t taken a position.
Proponents say gene editing merely speeds up results that could be achieved with a greater expenditure of time by conventional breeding. “The battle lines are shifting because companies like Calyxt can create plants without DNA from a different species in them. They can argue that gene editing is merely ‘accelerated breeding technology,’ ” says the MIT Review.
“By the end of 2018, Calyxt says, it will be crushing beans and selling oil, potentially becoming the first company to enter the market with a gene-edited crop. At least one other crop is nearing commercialization from DuPont, which used gene editing to create a starchier corn plant.”