munich

Switzerland's office for environment, forestry and agriculture (BUWAL) has rejected an application from AgrEvo, a German plant biotechnology company, to conduct field trials of its genetically modified (GM) herbicide-resistant ‘T25’ maize.

BUWAL officials say the site chosen by AgrEvo for its experiments was close to organic farms, and that cross-pollination leading to the contamination of organic crops could not be ruled out.

But the company says it is “mystified and upset” by the decision, and claims that it was made on “political” grounds. Less than a year ago a Swiss referendum rejected an initiative to ban such field trials by a two-thirds majority (see Nature 393, 507; 1998),

The application was one of the first two requests for field-trial licences since the early 1990s. The second, from the Swiss Institute, for field trials on a GM disease-resistant potato, was also rejected this month because of what were considered to be inadequate risk-assessment data. Technical data on the transgene were insufficient, said BUWAL, and the potato carried a marker gene for resistance to an antibiotic used in medicine.

In the case of the AgrEvo trials — to test characteristics of the resistance of T25 maize to the herbicide glufosinate — BUWAL says that the risk of contaminating organic crops is unacceptable. It argues that the application, initially made in 1997, did not include plans for monitoring potential gene flow to soil organisms or neighbouring plants.

“Swiss agriculture lives on the fact that its products are pure and natural,” says BUWAL director Philippe Roch.

Wulff Hansen, a spokesman for the chemical company Plüss-Staufer, which represents AgrEvo in Switzerland, says the decision came out of the blue, as the company had already discussed cross-pollination and monitoring with BUWAL.

It had agreed, for example, to prevent the production of pollen by cutting the crop before it flowered. The nearest field used for organic farming was 300 metres away, says Hansen, and did not grow maize, the only type of crop where cross-pollination could occur. The company had also offered to undertake any monitoring activities BUWAL considered necessary. AgrEvo has until early May to decide whether to appeal.

Georg Karlaganis, head of BUWAL's biotechnology division, says the office is keen “to set a high standard”. He says that the grounds for rejecting the AgrEvo patent are anticipated changes in a new European Union (EU) directive on the deliberate release of GM organisms. Though Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, its own rules governing the uses of genetic engineering are broadly similar to EU rules.

Proposed changes to the EU directive include a seven-year monitoring period for commercially grown crops. But regulations for field trials will not change substantially under the proposal, and licences, with or without monitoring requirements, will continue to be issued on a case-by-case basis, according to individual risk assessments.

Switzerland is revising its own rules, found in various federal laws, as part of the ‘Gen-Lex motion’. This is intended to coordinate the laws relating to genetic engineering and to fill any gaps. It was initiated last year to take some of the heat out of debates leading up to the referendum on genetic engineering (see Nature 391, 312; 1998).

AgrEvo management fear that BUWAL will not issue any licences before parliament has approved the Gen-Lex motion, expected at the end of the year, for fear of setting a precedent. But Karlaganis says that BUWAL is not fundamentally against GM crops.

InterNutrition, a group representing the major Swiss food companies, says that it “regrets” the rejection of the two applications and that the move will harm the reputation of Swiss plant biotechnology research.

Isabel Meister, a biotechnology expert for Greenpeace International, sees the rejections as “a step in the right direction”. Switzerland is one of the first countries to apply the ‘precautionary principle’, she says.