I agree with my friend here. There are mutations that have occurred. Humanity has created the crop biodiversity we see around us in modern fields right now through conventional breeding.
However, genetic engineering is quantitatively different and qualitatively different. We're talking about intervention in the genome of life using precise scientific techniques that allow for the insertion of foreign DNA into an organism.
As another person said in the meeting, we're talking about species from one organism being introduced into another organism. That has never occurred in the history of plant breeding, or in the history of life as we know it. We're talking about a new approach that requires new thinking and new regulations to ensure that those introductions of foreign genetic material are not causing adverse harm within the genome, ecologically, and for people's health.