Feature story - 22 May, 2002
After a long delay, the European Commission finally published the full text of a report on the co-existence of GE and non-GE crops in the European Union today.
Fields of genetically engineered soyabeans.
On May 16th, Greenpeace made public parts of the report that the
Commission had tried to keep secret since it was delivered by the
Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the EU Joint
Research Centre in January 2002.
In a comment to the press that the EU Commission gave out
together with the report this week they claimed that "there is
nothing secret about the study referred to in the Greenpeace press
release. The version published on their [the Greenpeace] web-site
is a draft ..." However, this is simply not true. The letters that
accompanied the study when it was delivered to the European
Commission in January, and that were obtained by Greenpeace,
clearly state that the study was presented in its "final version"
at that time.
The study states that farmers who don't want to cultivate GMOs
would face high additional, in some cases unsustainable, costs of
production if genetically engineered (GE) crops were commercially
grown on a large scale in Europe. The study predicts that the
situation would become particularly critical for organic farming of
oilseed rape as well as for intensive production of conventional
maize.
Seed and crop purity from GE pollution, at a detection level of
0.1 percent, would be virtually impossible in most cases. This
effectively means that all products and seeds of oilseed rape and
maize would be contaminated with GE crops to a certain extent.
Organic farming exempt of GMOs, as we know it today and as it is
defined in the EU Regulations, will be doomed.
These findings confirm the need for "zero tolerance" for seed
contamination, the standard demanded by Greenpeace and other
organisations.
Sign a petition to Save our Seeds from genetic
contamination.
Further information:
View
the EU report