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VLOG exchange with CSU politician Alexander Engelhard in the Bundestag

Sönke Guttenberg, Lena Bassermann, Alexander Engelhard MP and Alexander Hissting

VLOG Managing Director Alexander Hissting, Lena Bassermann (Public Affairs) and Sönke Guttenberg (Media and Public Relations) met with the CSU MP at his Berlin office for an exchange on the consequences and practical implications of the new EU regulation on New Genetic Engineering (NGT) for the organic and "Ohne Gentechnik" sectors.

These two economic sectors, which together sold around 36 billion euros worth of food last year, face the shared challenge of continuing to exclude all forms of genetic engineering from their production – including the new "NGT1" category – even after the new EU rules come into effect in mid-2028. Since the legal labelling requirement for this category has been removed beyond the seed stage, this is no trivial task.

As the owner of the organic farm Engelhardmühle Attenhofen, Alexander Engelhard himself faces this challenge and is therefore very familiar with the issue. The Member of the Bundestag sits on the Committees on Agriculture and the one on the Environment, the two parliamentary bodies most relevant to this topic. For his German home state of Bavaria and the CSU, too, the absence of genetic engineering in the agricultural and food sectors has traditionally been a key concern.

"We would like to thank Alexander Engelhard for the fruitful and important discussion. As a practitioner in the organic sector, he knows first-hand what is at stake. We look forward to continuing our dialogue!" said VLOG Managing Director Alexander Hissting.