Initiated by Spanish lab, and ENGA member, Imegen Agro (part of the Health in Code group) the letter urges lawmakers to ensure the future NGT legislation requires that laboratories get detection methods, reference material and data on the genetic modification and its location for category 1 NGT plants.
As laboratories, the signatories must be able to detect old and New GMOs to fulfil the requirements of their customers who want to know whether NGTs are present in their value chains.
So far, only the Council is in favour of requiring developers of category 1 NGTs plants to provide information on detection methods; this would apply to 94% of all plants in the development pipelines. In the letter, the labs urge all trilogue parties to support this initiative during the negotiations.
The full letter and list of signatories can be found here.