Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether farmers in the vicinity of the recently announced open field trials of gene-edited crops on 25 commercial farms in England will be given notice of the trials and the opportunity to object.

These plants only contain genetic sequence that could arise through traditional breeding. However, unlike equivalent trials for traditionally bred plants, Defra asks for confirmation that the person with overall responsibility for them will put in place appropriate measures, as necessary, to minimise the possibility of material from the plants entering the human food or animal feed systems.