On April 9, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a report titled “Agricultural Biotechnology Annual,” which argues that under any scenario, the United Kingdom’s (U.K.) separation from the EU (Brexit) is unlikely to change policy or trade in genetically engineered (GE) industries. According to the report prepared by USDA’s Jennifer Wilson, given the fact that the EU is the U.K.’s trading partner and has been for many years, the U.K. will retain much of the EU’s food laws in the short to medium term. Although Brexit could potentially change the agricultural biotechnology policy arena, it is not clear yet whether the U.K. will deviate from the European Court of Justice ruling on New Plant Breeding Techniques. Overall, according to Wilson’s summary, it seems that senior U.K. politicians favor simple genome editing techniques. In addition, it would be unlikely that large multinational seed technology companies would invest in commercialization of a GE crop that could only be marketed in the U.K., which is part of the reason that the current landscape for the cultivation and importation of GE products is not expected to change.

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