Publication - 14 October, 2002
Just over 10% (7.6 million hectares) of European arable land is currently planted with maize or oilseed rape. Since one variety of genetically engineered (GE) oilseed rape and two varieties of GE maize already have approval for growing in the EU, all of this land could be affected by the GE Seed Contamination Directive. This table shows by country how many genetically engineered plants could be released through seed contamination across the 15 European Union countries in the next growing season if the proposed thresholds for seed contamination in maize (0.5%) and oilseed rape (0.3%) are adopted.6,850 million unregulated GE plants could be released across Europe. If planted together this many GE plants would represent a cumulative area of 32,091 hectares or 321km2. Put another way that is equivalent to planting an area about twice the size of Brussels or covering 45,844 football pitches.