Earlier this week, the European Parliament finally passed new legislation to allow individual EU member states to restrict or ban the cultivation of crops containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on their territory, even where it is allowed at EU level.

The decision sidelines science in favour of opinion and means the EU will no longer operate as a Europe-wide free market. The good thing is that a decision has been made. Now individual countries can progress based on their own political perspective. While some will act to prevent cultivation, they will still use imported GM products in their daily lives. The question now is will the countries in favour of GMO cultivation continue to be constrained by archaic EU legislation or will this be meaningfully reformed? Many new plant-breeding technologies have been developed that do not necessitate the transfer of genes between species (the original GMO concept) but these are currently caught in EU legislation.

While we in Ireland will have little interest in current technologies that apply in maize, soya beans, cotton, etc, it is quite possible that the fruits of these newly evolving technologies may be more relevant to grass breeding. We must hope a new era of active research can be rekindled within progressive EU states.