Regulations on co-existence outside the EU

Official regulations on co-existence based on legislation are found almost exclusively in the EU. As the establishment of regulations on co-existence is closely related to the existence of regulations on labelling products with GM content, labelling regulations is the starting point for countries developing regulations on co-existence.

The non-EU countries of Norway and Switzerland have introduced the same threshold value for adventitious presence of 0.9% as the EU. Norway expects to have a proposal for regulations on co-existence ready in 2007.

Outside Europe, there are regulations on GM labelling in countries like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea.

The Working Group knows of regulations on co-existence existing or about to be introduced in certain Japanese provinces.

In Argentina and Brazil there are no regulations on co-existence and labelling based on legislation.

However, in some regions GM crops are not grown, and there are different certified non-GM soya products based on private identity preservation and traceability programmes.

4.2 Production of GM crops in the EU

The only GM crop commercially cultivated in the EU is a GM maize. The distribution of GM maize areas within the EU in 2006 is shown in Table 4.2.

Table 4.2. The distribution of GM maize areas in the EU in 2006. The cultivated maize areas are all with the insect resistant type MON810.

Country Area (ha) GM crop

Spain 60,000 Maize

France 5,000 Maize

The Czech Republic 1,290 Maize

Portugal 1,250 Maize

Germany 950 Maize

Slovakia 30 Maize

Only in Spain is GM maize grown on a considerable area. The maize is insect resistant (Bt) and has since the beginning of 1998 been grown to an increasing extent. In 2004 the GM maize area in Spain was 58,000 ha, but because of drought in the spring of 2005 there was a general decrease in the maize cultivation, and the GM maize area fell to 48,000 ha. In 2006 the GM maize area rose again to 60,000 ha, which amounted to approx. 15% of the country’s total maize area in 2006.

In 2005 GM maize was grown on small areas in Portugal (750 ha), France (500 ha), Germany (350 ha) and the Czech Republic (150 ha). As appears from Table 4.2, these areas increased in 2006, and GM maize was grown in Slovakia for the first time.

All the maize grown commercially in the EU in 2006 originated from the genetically modified maize line ’MON810’ from the company Monsanto. The GM maize has a protein that is toxic to the larvae (caterpillars) of corn borers that can cause considerable losses in maize crops in Southern and Central parts of Europe.

A number of GM maize varieties have been developed based on the ’MON810’ line, which first were included in the catalogue of varieties in Spain, France and Germany and then in the EU’s common catalogue of agricultural plant varieties (see the Appendix in section 9).

Romania has for a number of years grown GM soya of the type that has been imported into the EU since 1997 primarily for use in animal feeds. In 2006 the area was thought to be approx. 115,000 ha.

With Romania’s accession to the EU on 1 January 2007 the growing of GM soya was suspended, as it was not approved for growing in the EU. However, an application for growing is being

considered under the regulation of GM foods and feed.

Prospects for 2007

The GM maize area will probably increase further in 2007 and in the years to follow, especially in France, Germany, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A homepage of the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety publishes the location of fields with GM crops in Germany (Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit, 2007). For 2007 planned growing of MON810 maize on more than 3,700 ha had been reported by mid-March. However, experience shows that some of the reported area is withdrawn before the growing season begins.

GM maize varieties in the EU common catalogue of agricultural plant species

At the beginning of 2007 47 GM maize varieties are listed in the EU common catalogue of agricultural plant species. These varieties come from the national catalogues of varieties in France, Spain and Germany and, as mentioned above, are all based on the insect resistant ’MON810’ maize line.

In principle, all these varieties can be grown in Denmark. However, the pest (the European corn borer), to which the GM maize is resistant, is not a problem in Danish maize crops, and so Danish farmers have no incentive to grow this maize. In addition to this, these maize varieties are grain maize varieties adapted to growing in more southerly environments and tend not to ripen sufficiently under Danish conditions.

Trial releases with GM crops in Europe

The frequency with which different plant species and GM characteristics, respectively, occurs in the trial releases indicates what can be expected to be approved, grown and marketed in Europe in later years (Figures 4.2 and 4.3).

The most frequently occurring GM crops in trial releases have not changed since 2002. The four most frequent crops are maize, oilseed rape, beets and potatoes, after which there is some distance to the next four species. Most new trials in the period 2003-2006 were with maize and potato, and the four new approvals for marketing in this period were all GM maize events.

Figure 4.2. The most frequent GM plant species in trial releases in the EU (Source: JRC 2007 a &

b). The number of applications for trial releases from 1991 to April 2006 is shown horizontally.

There was a total of 2121 trial releases during this period. The number of GM events approved for marketing is shown to the right of the columns (see also Appendix in section 9).

The frequency of the selected characteristics found in GM plants in trial releases has shown some clear tendencies during the last 11 years (Figure 4.3). Herbicide tolerant GM plants were included in 74% of the trial releases in 2004-2006 compared with just under 60% in the previous trials. Insect resistance increased rapidly from just 18% in 1997-2000 to 48% in 2004-2006. GM plants with changed “ingredients” occurred in approx. 20% of the trial releases in all periods.

The modified plant characteristics include stress tolerance, changed morphology or reduced flowering. The relatively large number of the trial releases with “changed plant characteristics” in 2001-2003 (approx. 25%) included many trials on rice with changed growth and morphology in 2002. “Morphology and changed plant characteristics”, “disease resistance” and “other

characteristics” were generally included in a smaller number of trials.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Herbicide tolerance

Insect resistance

Constituents

Pathogen resistance

Plant characteristics

Others

Percentage field trials 2004-2006 2001-2003 1997-2000

Figure 4.3. Characteristics of the genetically modified trial release crops in the EU 1997-2006 (after Kjellsson et al., 2007). As a GM plant often had several transgenic traits, the sum of the percentages exceeds 100. The development of several GM traits in the plants in the EU trial releases is also clear in the way that 55% of the plants had two transgenic traits and 21% of the plants had three traits in 2005.

4.3 Co-existence in the EU

4.3.1 Administratively

In 2003, the EU Commission published a recommendation to the EU member states on guidelines for the development of national strategies and best practices for co-existence between GM,

conventional and organic crops (EU Commission, 2003). The publication took place a month before

the 2003 Report, but the recommendation contains many of the same elements that are included in the 2003 Report.

The recommendation has formed the background for the development of the EU countries’ national regulations on co-existence, which have been subsequently completed or are still being prepared. In its recommendation the Commission committed itself to preparing a report after 2 years on the experience on co-existence gained by the member states (EU Commission, 2006; see below).