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Distances needed to limit cross-fertilization between GM and conventional maize in Europe

Nature Biotechnology volume 28, pages 780–782 (2010)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

To avoid the economic consequences of admixtures of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM harvests, and to ensure that agricultural production complies with mandatory labeling provisions, the European Union (EU; Brussels) member states have adopted co-existence measures directed to farmers cultivating GM varieties. For GM maize cultivation, regulators have established mandatory isolation distances, which differ between countries and in some cases have been regarded as disproportionate1,2. Taking advantage of numerous field studies conducted by EU researchers in recent years, we report here a statistical analysis of cross-fertilization data in maize, showing that separating fields 40 m is sufficient to keep GM adventitious presence below the legal labeling threshold in the EU set at 0.9%.

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Figure 1: Cross-fertilization rates for Bt maize.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank M. Czarnak-Klos for help in the interpretation of the data sets of maize cross-fertilization trials that constitute the database of this analysis and J. Delincé for his useful comments on statistical simulation. The authors wish to express thanks to G. Squire, as coordinator of the gene flow and ecological field studies of the SIGMEA project, for providing SIGMEA data sets on maize cross-fertilization trials. Within the SIGMEA partners, many thanks are extended to R. Wilhelm for providing data under German agricultural conditions, A. Vogler for Swiss data and J. Messeguer for data from Spain.

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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, Seville, Spain

    Laura Riesgo, Francisco J Areal & Emilio Rodríguez-Cerezo

  2. Agroscope Reckenholz Tänikon Research Station ART., Zurich, Switzerland

    Olivier Sanvido

Authors
  1. Laura Riesgo
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  2. Francisco J Areal
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  3. Olivier Sanvido
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  4. Emilio Rodríguez-Cerezo
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Correspondence to Laura Riesgo.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.

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Supplementary Tables 1–4, Supplementary Notes 1–4 (PDF 40 kb)

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Riesgo, L., Areal, F., Sanvido, O. et al. Distances needed to limit cross-fertilization between GM and conventional maize in Europe. Nat Biotechnol 28, 780–782 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0810-780

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