The origin of Cisgenesis, and its evolving definition

The concept of cisgenesis was born in 1999 in a working group of two Christian political parties in the Netherlands. In this working group it was concluded that when ‘species-own genes’ are used for genetic modification, gene flow from cisgenic crops to wild relatives in vegetations does not lead to genetic contamination of these wild relatives, as the cisgenes have been taken from these wild relatives. Further, the integrity of the species would be less affected in case of cisgenes compared to the use of foreign genes. The word ‘cisgenese’ has been published in a Dutch book from this working group. In a European Research project that started in 2000, cisgenic strawberries were developed for fruit rot resistance. Social scientists in this project showed that cisgenic strawberries are more acceptable for growers and consumers compared to transgenic strawberries. After 2004 the definition of cisgenesis became gradually stricter. In 2009 and 2012 motions for exempting cisgenic crops from the GMO regulation were accepted by the majorities of the Senate and Parliament in the Netherlands. However, this could not be implemented in this country, as the Dutch GMO regulation is based on the European GMO regulation. This chapter describes the birth of cisgenesis, its evolving definition, and discussions exempting cisgenic crops from GMO regulations