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EU legitimizes GM crop exclusion zones

Nature Biotechnology volume 29, pages 315–317 (2011)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

The removal of any need for scientific justification in decisions concerning GM crops effectively serves to legalize the currently illegal practice in which individual member states arbitrarily declare GM-free zones within their borders, or ban GM crops altogether2. The only GM crops currently grown in Europe are the pest-resistant maize variety MON810 and the Amflora potato variety engineered to produce modified starch. Both are banned in Austria, Hungary and Luxembourg, and the MON810 event is also banned in France, Greece and Germany (Table 1). Poland is currently drawing up legislation to ban all GM seeds, and other member states are considering similar proposals. Although these existing and proposed bans are technically in breach of EU regulations, at least those member states implementing a ban have to make some sort of effort to justify their decision on scientific grounds, even if the evidence used in such cases is dubious (the 'safeguard clause'). When the legal amendment enters into force, member states will be free to restrict or prohibit the cultivation of all or particular GM crops within their territory, including crops that have already been authorized for cultivation under Directive 2001/18/EC and Regulation EC 1829/2003, and will be able to do so without explanation. This places the future of GM agriculture in Europe at the whim of politicians who may feel compelled to act in response to the media or activist propaganda.

Table 1 National bans currently implemented under the 'safeguard clause'
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Figure 1: The previous voting habits of the EU ministers on matters concerning GM crops.

References

  1. European Commission. Memo 10/325: Questions and Answers on the EU's New Approach to the Cultivation of GMOs (European Commission, Brussels, 2010).

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Acknowledgements

Research in our laboratory is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN), Spain (BFU2007-61413); European Union Framework 6 Program—The Pharma-Planta Integrated Project LSH-2002-1.2.5-2; European Union Framework 7 Program-SmartCell Integrated Project 222716; European Union Framework 7 European Research Council IDEAS Advanced Grant (to P.C.) Program-BIOFORCE; COST Action FA0804: Molecular farming: plants as a production platform for high value proteins; and Centre CONSOLIDER on Agrigenomics, funded by MICINN, Spain.

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  1. Maite Sabalza, Bruna Miralpeix and Richard M Twyman: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament de Producció Vegetal I Ciència Forestal, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain

    Maite Sabalza, Bruna Miralpeix, Teresa Capell & Paul Christou

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Richard M Twyman

  3. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Passeig Lluís Companys, Barcelona, Spain

    Paul Christou

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  1. Maite Sabalza
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  2. Bruna Miralpeix
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  4. Teresa Capell
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  5. Paul Christou
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Correspondence to Paul Christou.

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Sabalza, M., Miralpeix, B., Twyman, R. et al. EU legitimizes GM crop exclusion zones. Nat Biotechnol 29, 315–317 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.1840

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