Project Oppotunity
(CRISPR-CAS for starch potatoes)
Project Oppotunity is an agreement of organisations involved in the cultivation, breeding, processing and improvement of starch potatoes.
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Working together to maintain the competitiveness of the European potato starch industry by lobbying for EU approval of gene editing..
→ Click here for more infos...- Aardevo
- Agrana
- Agrico
- Emsland Stärke
- Finnamyl (Chemigate)
- KMC
- Lyckeby
- Niehoff
- Norika
- SolEdits
- Südstärke
- AKV
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The work of the project aims to support the approval of SDN1 under the same conditions as traditional plant breeding.
This means that no labelling is required and that the plants that are grown in this way are safe for human, animal and environment. We do not support in general SDN3 except for cisgenesis where we would like to have this opportunity to speed up the breeding without using crossings, but we are aware of the need of another type of approval process. This however has a lower priority than the approval of SDN1.
We develop a variety with the use of the SDN 1 technology which is Phytophtora resistant Kuras as an example project for which we seek deregulation including non labelling. Why is the potato starch industry so eager to have CRISP-Cas9 deregulated in the EU?
"As the potato starch industry is a small European industry with ~11.000 farmers making a living here from, it is key to be able to improve the potato varieties in such a manner that sustainability and competitiveness is maintained, threatened under the Green Deal."