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After 5 years with no new approvals for GM crop planting in Europe, EU leaders gathered in Vienna last week to discuss plans for "Coexistence" measures, supposedly to deal with how GM, conventional and organic agriculture can exist together in the future.
But green groups pointed out that the phrase "coexistence" is misleading, and that it is simply not possible for organic and conventional agriculture to be safeguarded while GM is planted in the same area. They claim that a truer name for so-called "coexistence" is actually "contamination".
Greenpeace pointed to their report on Spain, the only EU country where GM maize is being grown on a large scale (60,000 hectares) and the extensive contamination of non-GM crops that has resulted. A quarter of supposedly non-GM crops have been contaminated with GM, in some cases up to 12.6% contamination. Farmers have suffered economic losses and lost their local maize varieties as a result. This case demonstrates the impossibility of coexistence, and the inevitability of contamination, if GM is grown in Europe and elsewhere. "Impossible Coexistence"
Friends of the Earth also produced a report criticising the European Commission for listening only to the GM industry and pushing for low standards of legislation that ignore the public's concerns and will lead to inevitable contamination.
"Contaminate or Legislate?" http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/contaminate_or_legislate.pdf
Even the EU Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimas, admitted that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the body that has frequently okayed GM food import applications, was flawed and not applying rigourous safety assessments.
The conference came under criticism for its bias on pro-GM presentations, which did not pay due attention to the concerns raised by NGOs about the negative implications for "coexistence". In fact there was very little progress made and legislation was not passed.
The title of the conference was "Freedom of Choice". But the meaning of the name is in itself controversial. While some parties claimed that farmers should be given the freedom to grow GM if they chose to, others point out that if this happens then the freedom for farmers to remain GM-free or organic will disappear through contamination. Concern about GM contamination in the EU is so strong that 12 countries have national bans, and 172 regions across Europe have declared themselves GMO-free. It simply seems that freedom of choice is not possible for both sides: either we have organic and conventional, or we have GM. It is not possible to have both.
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