‘As long as genes of the same species are transferred, even modern sequencing cannot distinguish between modern GMOs and the results of permissible breeding; the plants are the same.’
Manuel Stark, journalist at NZZ
NZZ, 16 February 2025
‘Our laws are hindering progress without any factual basis.’
Nicolaus von Wirén, agricultural biologist and director of the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research
NZZ, 16 February 2025
‘It would be helpful if this debate were also driven more by facts and less by ideology. We have been breeding plants and animals for thousands of years and have no problem with it. If we didn't, we wouldn't be able to feed the human race at all.’
Prof. Reto Knutti
LinkedIn, April 2025
‘If you have made a technical invention or developed a brand, you want to avoid third parties free-riding on your work.’
Irène Vogt, IP Academy programme manager
Fokus Swiss Values, April 2025
‘Many projects are currently failing due to resistance from the population, because every technology has its opponents. If that doesn't change, security of supply will become incredibly expensive, unfair and sometimes impossible.’
Antje Kanngiesser
NZZ, 21 March 2025
'What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. If you make a claim, it's up to you to prove it, not to me to disprove it.'
Hitchens Razor
American Council on science and health, 19 February 2025
‘In the EU, it is permitted and not considered genetic engineering to use chemicals or radiation to create random mutations in crops. However, as soon as a targeted change is made to the genome, for example using Crispr, the plant is classified as a GMO. This is quite absurd.’
Claudia Köhler, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology
NZZ am Sonntag, 16 February 2025
‘What strikes me from an American perspective is that in Europe, people spend 99 per cent of their time talking about the dangers and regulations of new technologies and only 1 per cent about the opportunities.’
Urs Hölzle, Senior Fellow at Google
NZZ, 1 February
‘The definitions of terms such as ‘green’, ‘carbon neutral’ or ‘climate neutral’ are currently as confusing as can be.’
Participant in the 2025 economiesuisse member survey on sustainability reporting
‘CS (common sense) instead of ESG. ESG reduces value creation and is therefore particularly harmful to SMEs.’
Beat Brechbühl, attorney
Trade journal, 24 January 2025
‘Politicians have no way of knowing which industries will be seminal in the future, which ones will prove their worth and prevail in the long term. It's hubris. They can make huge miscalculations. The result is that a lot of taxpayers' money is spent in the wrong way.’
Patrick Dümmler, Head of Sustainability and Economic Policy at the Swiss Trade Association
Gewerbezeitung, 24 January 2025
«If the state wants to support its industry, it should rather ensure the right conditions, such as legal certainty, public infrastructure, education or an attractive tax environment. The entire economy benefits from this, not just individual companies.»
Antonio Fumagalli, NZZ
NZZ, 20 April 2024
«Most things, except agriculture, can wait.»
Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India (1889-1964)
«What side effects can occur with vaccinations and how long after vaccination?»
Gustav Kuschinsky, German pharmacologist (1904–1992)
«Companies that are in competition with each other are better at recognising future-proof technologies than the state, which is guided by all sorts of interests.»
Antonio Fumagalli
NZZ, 20 April 2024
«If we want to ensure a sufficient supply of high-quality domestic products, we have to protect plants from diseases, pests and weeds as efficiently as possible. If insect larvae are found on a product, an entire harvest may not be marketable. This is not sustainable when you consider the resources – land, water and fertiliser – that have already been used.»
Olivier Félix, Head of Sustainable Crop Protection at the Federal Office for Agriculture (BLW)
Migros Magazine, August 2024
‘A Merlot or Chasselas without fungal diseases would be better for me than a new (Piwi) variety.’
Jürg Maurer, long-standing viticulture commissioner
Obst + Wein, August 2024
«In the city, people often make judgements about the farmers – without knowing what's at stake.»
Tages-Anzeiger, 3 August 2024
«We are in the year 2024. If you really want to produce organic apples sustainably, you also have to allow new breeding methods»
Marco Messerli
Organic farmer calls for genome editing for fruit growing, February 12, 2024
«A catastrophe»: Greenpeace blocks planting of lifesaving Golden Rice. «It goes completely against the science, which has found no evidence of any risk associated with Golden Rice. This will result in thousands of unncessary child deaths.»
Matin Qaim, University of Bonn
«Land use for agriculture is inevitably related to loss of biodiversity. Management techniques such as use of Plant Protection Products have by definition a negative impact on biodiversity, but this loss is by far surpassed by the higher land use in extensive production systems.»
EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service
«The new breeding technologies will not replace traditional breeding, but they could complement it»
Andrea Patocchi, Head of the Fruit Breeding Research Group at Agroscope
Obst + Wein, April 2024
«If we did not interfere with nature through modern technology, we would not have attained the quality of life we now enjoy»
National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) from the Philippines, 25 April 2024
«Most people do not die from the things they are afraid of»
Andreas Hensel, President German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment
«Crispr is being used in laboratories all over the world, not only in the fields of health, agriculture, climate change and synthetic biology, but also in diagnostics to detect coronavirus and other diseases.»
Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Prize winner
Using Crispr to combat climate change, December 11, 2023
«Breeding in itself is not natural.»
Prof. Dr. Detlef Weigel, Director of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Biology
Forschung & Lehre, Issue 1/2017
«Up to one-fifth of all crops worldwide are currently lost to pests, and this is expected to rise to 25 percent due to climate change. While non-chemical control methods can have some success in reducing crop losses, pesticides remain a necessary weapon in our fight against devastating crop losses and this will remain the case for the foreseeable future.»
Linda Field, professor at Rothamsted Research
AgroPages, 9 February 2023
«I’m not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.»
Groucho Marx, American actor and entertainer
«A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.»
Franklin D. Roosevelt
‘Agricultural policy is security policy – at least as much as energy policy is.’
Christian Janze, agricultural expert at Ernst & Young
Die Welt am Sonntag, 17 April 2022
«Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but not a right to their own science.»
Dr. Joachim von Braun, Chair of the Scientific Group of the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS)
In a session at the UNFSS
‘Swiss agricultural colleges no longer teach you how to produce food properly. You are mainly landscape gardeners.’
Moritz Stamm, Swiss farmer in Ukraine
NZZ Magazin, 19 March 2022
If we want to produce more food within the planetary boundaries, this can only be achieved through higher productivity and increased crop yields. To achieve this, we need modern technology, which we should not close our minds to.
Matin Qaim, Agricultural economist at the University of Bonn
Handelsblatt, 31 March 2022
«If we deny facts, if we say that up is down and down is up, that left is right and right is left, we are obviously going to get lost. It's as simple as that, because science gives a direction. Science tells us what the facts are.»
Inger Andersen, Executive Director UN Environmental Program (UNEP)
UN News, 10 February 2021
«We have to overcome dogmatism. (...) The two agricultural initiatives last June were very ambitious. But I think they made people aware of what agriculture is up against.»
Jürg Grossen, GLP Party President
watson, 16 February 2022
«No, I smoke just enough that I hope I won't have to quit. According to Paracelsus, everything is poison, it just depends on the quantity.»
Katharina Prelicz-Huber, National Councillor, Grüne
Tages-Anzeiger, 28 January 2022
«Sometimes I have the feeling that a good engine oil is more important to us than a good salad oil.»
Cem Özdemir, German Minister of Agriculture and Food
foodaktuell, 28 December 2021
«Of course we found residues, that goes without saying. But they were only traces and not a health hazard.»
Christoph Spinner, Thurgau Canton Chemist
Thurgauer Zeitung, 31 December 2020
«We will not soon be able to feed ten billion people with an agriculture that used to feed one billion. What we need is not a romantic but a science-based agricultural turnaround.»
Matthias Berninger, Head of Sustainability Bayer AG
Bayer Presse DE, Twitter, 17 October 2020
«Food production does not work in the home office.»
Julia Klöckner, Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection
Lid, 2 October 2020
«I think we give a little too much weight to the theorists. Only with evidence is it possible to know what is really happening.»
Paul m. Romer, Winner of the the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2018
NZZ, 3 August 2020
«Potatoes or tomatoes would be unthinkable without direct crop protection.»
Hans Ramseier, Professor for Plant Protection, HAFL
Der Bund, 31 July 2020
«Plant protection is a technology that supports civilisation.»
Prof. Dr. Andreas von Tiedemann, Georg-August University Göttingen
Lecture at the CAS - Autumn Conference 2018 at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna
«It would be unattractive if the conventional farmer had a potato variety that does without pesticides - and the organic farmer had a potato variety that he has to spray with copper.»
Urs Niggli, Bio-researcher
TAZ, 6. April 2016
