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January 26, 2006
USDA/FAS GAIN report FR5084
Report Highlights
The second international
conference on coexistence between GM and non-GM based
agricultural supply chains took place in Montpellier,
France, in mid November 2005. It was coorganized by the
French National Institute of Agronomy (INRA) and the
European Commission Directorate General Joint Research
Center (JRC). The Commissioner for Agriculture emphasized
the high priority of the coexistence legislative framework
on her agenda, and the JRC announced that their research
program will be finalized in December 2005. A large number
of papers were presented on gene flow modeling, national
implementation, organization and costs of coexistence.
France's coexistence legislation is still pending.
Introduction and Summary
On November 14-15, 2005,
the second international conference on coexistence between
GM and non-GM based agricultural supply chains (GMCC-05) was
held in Montpellier, France. The event was co-organized by
the French National Institute of Research in Agriculture
(INRA) and the European Commission Directorate General Joint
Research Center (JRC). The first GM/non-GM coexistence
conference (GMCC-03) was held in Denmark in 2003. The EC, in
conjunction with the Austrian Presidency of the European
Union, will organize the next coexistence conference in
Vienna (Austria) in April 2006.
This conference focused on
both European and non-European coexistence situations and
consequent agronomic and economic research findings. There
were no policy statements made apart from opening remarks by
EU agricultural Commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel. There
were no demonstrations of anti-biotech lobbyists, although
some were present.
At the Montpellier meeting,
EU Agriculture Commissioner Fischer-Boel, in her opening
remarks, made clear that biotech coexistence is high on her
agenda. She insisted that the legislative framework on
biotech coexistence at the EU and Member State levels
continue to be developed. Fischer-Boel declared that the EU
Commission (EC) is currently working on a report to
consolidate actions among Member States on coexistence, to
be presented to the
European Council in early 2006. She stressed the importance
for the EC of mutual exchanges and information sharing among
the Member States. She said that this would help establish a
scientific basis to allow for the development of a
coexistence framework that would provide choices for farmers
and guarantees for consumers. In addition, the Commissioner
underlined the political importance of resolving the
liability issue.
Experiences of Coexistence
Outside of the EU: U.S., Brazil, Canada and Australia
U.S. and Brazil:
Successful Coexistence Experiences with IP Soybean Products
Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes,
(Professor of Economics and Management of Agrobiotechnology
Center, University of Missouri-Columbia -
http://emac.missouri.edu/), discussed world markets for
U.S. IP soybeans and corn. He focused on the technical and
economic aspects of Indentity Preserved (IP) supply chains
under the conditions of coexistence in the United States,
using the PRESIP modeling platform.
His main conclusion was that
coexistence can only be viable under technically and
economically reasonable adventitious presence thresholds, as
is the case for IP soybean products for the Japanese market.
A large part of the audience of the GMCC-05 conference had
read the speaker’s former publications and welcomed his
presentation.
The situation in Brazil was
presented by Roseli Rocha Dos Santos, Unibrasil Integrated
Faculties. She illustrated the coexistence between GM and
non-GM soybeans in Brazil with 7 companies using Identity
Preservation in processing soybeans and exporting to Japan
and EU markets under certified non-GM requirements.
France was specifically
identified as a target for Brazilian non-GM soybean
products. First, Brazilian soybean meal is reportedly
certified non-GM by the certifying company, ECOCERT, when
exported to French cooperatives. Another Brazilian company
is reportedly supplying the French supermarket chain
Carrefour and the food company Nestle with non-GM soybean
products. A third company is reportedly certified by the
European company SGS for non-GM soybean products, and
endorsed by Genescan, a German inspection and auditing
company, for IP lecithin exported to Europe.
Canada: Coexistence
Experience with Canola
Rene Van Acker (University of
Manitoba) presented the Canadian perspective. He discussed
the problem of “gene escape” encountered in Canada on GM
canola, which is now ubiquitous. The speaker discussed the
Canadian government’s approach to this issue.
Australia: Coexistence
Experience –Cotton and Canola
Keith Alcock, Department of
Agriculture, Government of Western Australia, presented the
Australian experience. He discussed the success of GM cotton
production in Australia, for which coexistence has not been
an issue. GM cotton now represents the bulk of cotton
production in Australia, as is the case in the United
States. He explained this was due to the benefits of GM
cotton as a result of the sharp reduction in insecticide
use. On the other hand, he presented the current moratorium
on GM canola, as a result of coexistence concerns from the
industry of cross-contamination, as is the case in Europe.
These presentations on
problems experienced by countries with canola coexistence
had a significant resonance among the French audience.
Rapeseed is a major crop grown in France, and a number of
research projects are conducted on the feasibility of GM
rapeseed production through the modeling of gene flow.
Coexistence Experience and
Studies in the EU
Spain: the Only Large
Scale Experience of Coexistence in Europe
A representative of the
Spanish Ministry of Agriculture (Jose Ignacio Ortega Molina)
discussed the situation in his country (for more
information, see PO5022). In Spain, production of GM corn
started in 1998. In 2004, there were 58,200 ha of GM corn
planted, mainly in Aragon and Cataluna regions, where they
represented 35 and 28 percent of corn acreage, respectively.
Corn faces a strong attack from the corn borer in these two
regions, and farmers therefore need to grow Bt corn to
maintain their yields. The Spanish MinAg representative
explained Bt corn is mainly grown for the feed market, while
corn grown for starch entering the food chain is grown in
dedicated non-GM areas, and sold to buyers willing to pay a
premium for non-GM products.
Finally, the Spanish MinAg
representative described the Spanish draft regulation on
coexistence, expected to enter into force in early 2006. He
said the regulation will include a chapter on farmers
obligations (measures to apply during production,
transportation and storage process), a chapter on monitoring
and control (national plan of supervision, registration of
plots, fines for non-compliance), and an annex with
technical indications (50 meters distances of isolation
around GM plots, buffer zones of 4 conventional rows around
GM plots, refuge zones of a minimum of 20 percent of the
total acreage), and good farm practices.
Coexistence Research
Joint Research Center (http://www.jrc.es)
There was a presentation of
the European Commission’s (EC) Directorate General Joint
Research Center (JRC), whose mission is to support EC policy
makers with the best scientific background. The JRC is
involved in research relevant to coexistence mainly through
the work of its Institute for Prospective Technological
Studies (IPTS), a number of whose representatives were
speakers at the Montpellier conference.
JRC-IPTS provided scientific
support to the EC for the publication of its recommended
guidelines on coexistence in 2003. JRC-IPTS worked with the
French National Institute of Research in Agronomy (INRA,
co-organizer of the Montpellier conference) and other
European research centers on a report finalized in December
2005 on biotech
coexistence. Thee report identified agronomic measures for
coexistence, introduced landscape scale for estimating gene
flow and adventitious presence levels, identified
coexistence measures for planting seeds, studied the effects
of long time periods, and reviewd existing models on gene
flow. EC
Directorate General for Research (http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/index_en.cfm)
The Biotechnology, Food and
Agriculture section of the DG RTD presentation focused on
the biotech coexistence research projects SIGMEA and
COEXTRA. These projects involve 23 countries inside and
outside of the EU, such as Russia, Argentina and Brazil.
These research projects study gene flow containment, changes
in farm practices to reduce gene flow, socioeconomics and
environmental impacts of GM and non-GM coexistence, and
Member States regulatory projects on coexistence.
French Action in European
Research Programs
COEXTRA: (http://www.coextra.org/)
COEXistence and TRAceability
of GM and non-GM supply chains is a four-year European
research project launched in June 2005 and funded with 13.5
million euros by the EU. France is highly involved in
COEXTRA as its scientific coordinator is the French
researcher in the National Institute of Research in Agronomy
(INRA) Yves Bertheau. Apart from INRA, other French
organizations involved in the COEXTRA program include:
SIGMEA: (http://sigmea.dyndns.org/)
Under the EC Sixth
Framework Programme, Sustainable Introduction of GM
crops into European Agriculture (SIGMEA) started in May
2004 and runs for three years. Again, France is
significantly involved in this research program, with a
French person as the scientific coordinator (Antoine
Messean, INRA researcher), and several French
organizations involved including INRA, CETIOM,
ARVALIS-Institut du Vegetal, and the University of Paris
11.
A French research
program: POECB (http://www.agpm.com//iso_album/poecb_1.pdf)
The French research
program named Operational Program for GM Crop Evaluation
(POECB) was conducted from 2002 to 2004 in France. On 7
sites across France, POECB studied coexistence of Bt
corn with conventional corn and traceability from the
field to the silo. French corn growers, INRA,
ARVALIS-Institut du Vegetal, planting seed organizations
(GNIS, FNPSMS and SEPROMA), the Research Institute on
Grain Food Technologies (IRTAC), and the biotech
organization DEBA jointly worked on this program.
POECB findings were
presented at the GMCC-05 conference. They covered
distances between Bt corn plots and conventional plots
to reduce cross-pollination levels, depending on wind
intensities and field size, and explored several
scenarios for organizing coexistence at different phases
of the production process (farm, dryer, and silos).
Finally, POECB explored good farming practice guidelines
to ensure that the GM adventitious presence in non-GM
corn remains below the EU labeling threshold of 0.9
percent.
French Biotech Bill Still
Pending
Approximately one
year ago the French announced legislation (biotech
bill) to transpose EU Directive 2001/18, which
established coexistence rules for biotech products,
into French law. The law would change the
organization of the French committees that assess
biotech products and set national rules on
coexistence (see FR5061 for more details). The
legislation is still pending, however, for several
reasons. The French Minister of Agriculture
announced his preference for EU coexistence rules
rather than national regulations (see FR5054) last
July. In addition, the French have not resolved the
issues of coexistence liability, as in, who bears
responsibility for gene flow and how insurance
companies can cover the risk, and technical
standards, including buffer zones, cultural
practices, transportation and storage segregation.
Strong lobbying by
ecological groups may have also affected the pace of
France’s impetus to finalize the biotech bill. Such
groups resist the implementation of coexistence
because it infers a legitimacy of biotech plantings
alongside conventional plantings. If France does not
transpose the 2001/18 Directive into French law by
October 2006 it must pay high penalties set by the
European Court of Justice.
USDA/FAS GAIN report FR5084
This report in PDF format:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/gainfiles/200512/146131663.pdf
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