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Bt corn in Spain—the performance of the EU's first GM crop

Nature Biotechnology volume 26, pages 384–386 (2008)Cite this article

To the editor:

Your March issue1 indicates that last year 114 million hectares of farmland across the world were planted with genetically modified (GM) crops. And yet in Europe, the cultivation of these crops remains both limited and controversial. Indeed, scientific and policy debates in the European Union (EU) have rarely focused on the agronomic aspects of GM crops and economic impacts for EU farmers. Currently, the only GM crop authorized for commercial cultivation in the EU is a GM corn resistant to corn borer by virtue of the transgenic expression of a gene encoding Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin. Spain now has over nine years of experience in commercial cultivation of this type of GM corn (and is the European member state with the highest adoption rate for this GM variety). It is thus an opportune time to analyze ex post the agronomic and economic performance of Bt corn in Spain. We present the results of this analysis below—the first for a GM crop cultivated in the EU.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from the European Commission's Sixth Framework Program for Research under the project 'Sustainable Introduction of GMOs into European Agriculture' (SIGMEA) is acknowledged. Authors thank S.H. Gay, A. Stein and G. Ceddia from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre for valuable comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), Edificio Expo, Avda. Inca Garcilaso s/n, Seville, 41092, Spain

    Manuel Gómez-Barbero & Emilio Rodríguez-Cerezo

  2. Departamento de Economía Agraria, Universidad de Córdoba, Spain

    Julio Berbel

Authors
  1. Manuel Gómez-Barbero
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  3. Emilio Rodríguez-Cerezo
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Gómez-Barbero, M., Berbel, J. & Rodríguez-Cerezo, E. Bt corn in Spain—the performance of the EU's first GM crop. Nat Biotechnol 26, 384–386 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0408-384

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