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November 14, 2008
Source: The Meridian
Institute's Food Security and Ag-Biotech News
Coexistence in the EU--Return
of the Moratorium on GM Crops?
Source:Nature Biotechnology
Author:Yann Devos, Matty Demont, and Olivier Sanvido
This opinion piece says that
regulations on the coexistence of genetically modified (GM) and
non-GM crops are "another challenge that threatens to paralyze
the cultivation of GM crops in Europe." In the EU, individual
member states are responsible for the development of coexistence
regulations. The opinion piece says that many member states have
or are proposing to require "wide and fixed isolation distances"
between GM crops and neighboring fields. The problem with such
requirements, the opinion pieces argues, is that they are:
1) "excessive from a scientific point of view;"
2) difficult to implement in practice;
3) inconsistent with regional variations in farming; and
4) not proportional to the economic incentives for coexistence.
The opinion piece suggests that policymakers enact "plural
coexistence measures" that are adaptable to local farming and
cropping conditions, and that are negotiable among farmers. It
says that computer-based decision support tools could play a
crucial role here, as they could be used to predict achievable
levels of coexistence between neighboring maize fields under
various conditions. The opinion piece acknowledges, however,
that policymakers may be reluctant to adopt such a case-by-case
approach because of the difficulties of implementation. The
authors of the opinion piece are associated with universities
and research institutes in Belgium and Switzerland.
The opinion piece can be viewed online at the link below with a
subscription to the journal Nature Biotechnology.
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n11/full/nbt1108-1223.html |
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