Earlier this year the UK’s Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) launched a public consultation on its plans to deregulate agricultural crops and other organisms produced using a genetic engineering process called gene editing.

The 10-week consultation provoked thousands of responses from the public, as well as from academia, science, business and the public sector – and 86% of all responses indicated that gene editing should continue to be regulated as a GMO. In spite of this the UK government has announced its intention to remove key regulations from gene edited crops.