Legal Action Challenges UK’s New GMO Regulations

June 30, 2025 by Staff Reporter

We’ve joined with UK farmers, food businesses and concerned citizens to launch legal challenge new GMO regulations.

On 16 June 2025, Beyond GM, sent a pre-action letter to Defra Secretary of State Steve Reed, signalling our intention to pursue a judicial review of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025.

The Regulations, which were signed into law in May, create a new category of GMOs, called “precision bred organisms” (PBOs), and exempt these from the food and environmental safety requirements of other types of GMOs. We this this is a sleight of hand that has serious implications for the environment and the food system.

The pre-action letter, supported by Doves Farm, Daylesford Organic, Planet Organic, Abbey Home Farm, Holden Farm Dairy, Hodmedod’s and journalist and author Joanna Blythman, highlighted serious potential illegalities in these new Regulations.

These include breaches of the Human Rights Act, the Aarhus Convention, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Habitats Directive. The legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers have also identified areas of overreach where the Regulations go beyond what Parliament has authorised, for instance, preventing any safety testing that could reveal problems with these organisms.

Help us reach our funding goal. Donate to our legal challenge at CrowdJustice.

Beyond GM Director Pat Thomas says “The current government had a golden opportunity to improve the inadequate legislation created by its predecessors. It had the opportunity to put important safeguards in place – the same safeguards that it vociferously argued for when it was in opposition. Instead it has doubled down on a damaging piece of legislation, the only beneficiary of which is the biotech industry. The rest of us – citizens, farmers, food businesses and the environment – gain nothing except a loss of transparency and trust.”

Impacts across the board

These breaches mean the new regulations have significant implications for food sovereignty, environmental protection, consumer choice and democratic accountability in the UK. The implications are far-reaching:

No labelling requirements for precision-bred GMOs in food
No traceability systems to track these organisms through the supply chain
Direct threats to organic farming and food businesses
Risks to UK-EU trade relationships if English genetically modified PBOs fall below other countries’ standards
Developers can ‘self-certify’ the safety of plants released into the environment
Threats to the autonomy of devolved nations Scotland and Wales; the government feels it can force English PBOs onto their markets

For organic farmers and businesses, they create acute legal conflicts because PBOs are still legally considered GMOs for the purposes of certification.

For any businesses that wish to remain GMO-free, including agroecological, non-GMO regenerative, artisanal, traditional and Geographical Indication, they mean traceability will be nearly impossible.

For the environment, the new Regulations mean no safety assessments or monitoring and, crucially, they allow almost any kind of precision bred plant – not just those intended for agricultural use – to be planted in England for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

For all these reason we believe these new Regulations must be challenged.

What we are asking

We are not seeking to ‘ban’ GMOs – indeed they have never been ‘banned’ in the UK. But, where the use of novel and largely untested technologies in food and the environment is concerned, we believe in precaution, transparency and truth.

We are therefore demanding that the government fulfils the reasonable expectation of UK consumers, farmers and food businesses that these novel organisms are subject to rigorous environmental and safety assessments and meaningful public consultation and are clearly labelled and fully traceable ‘from field to fork’.

We believe these new Regulations should be revoked before they become operational in November 2025, that a full impact assessment should be performed and that a new, more robust and inclusive process should be put in place to rewrite them in a way that is responsive to the needs of citizens and the natural world.

Beyond GM has launched a CrowdJustice funding platform to raise funds for the action and we encourage everyone who cares about the environment and about what they eat to donate today. It has also set up a dedicated website, Stop Hidden GMOs, for news of the legal action.

Clear messages

The pre-action letter to the Secretary to State was supported by farmers, businesses and individuals who believe the new Regulations will have a negative impact on them. Here’s what they have to say:

“Transparency, traceability, and the right to an informed choice within a sustainable food system are important to us as a food business, to our customers and to all consumers. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025, as they currently stand, threaten these principles by removing labelling requirements and in doing so, undermines the protections for organic and non-GMO food supply chains.”

“Our connection to the land and respect for nature guide everything we do. We believe that everyone deserves to know exactly what’s in their food and how it’s produced. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025 put these values at risk making it harder for individuals to choose organic or non-GMO foods and undermining the trust that supports sustainable farming.”

“We believe there should be labelling and transparency so consumers can make informed decisions. This shouldn’t be a cost added to organic and non-organic farmers, producers, manufacturers, retailers or anyone else affected. That burden should be borne by the developers of precision bred GMOs.“

“We know what goes into the food we produce on our farm and can openly communicate this information, and the vales behind it, to our customers and to the people who visit our farm. In our view, the lack of labelling and transparency for precision bred GMOs brought in by these new regulations, denies consumers information that should be on all food packaging.”

“Our customers rely on us being able to tell them how the food they’re eating was grown; how the land was worked, what inputs were (or were not) used – which seeds were planted. We take pride in being able to track every element through movements and processes, across time back to the farm or supplier. It allows us to understand and manage food safety risks and prevent food fraud. This new legislation makes that impossible.”

Joanna Blythman says, “This government is trying to sidestep public opinion by sneaking these genetically modified organisms (GMOs) onto our plates, unlabelled, even though their introduction would change our food in a way that could never occur in nature. This dishonest GM push represents the most serious threat to non-GMO, organic, and traditional food and farming that I have witnessed in my lifetime.”