Environmental group Friends of the Earth on Monday accused the European Commission of favouring the biotech industry in its vision of how GMO crops could be grown alongside organic and traditional types. In a report issued on the eve of an EU conference on the subject in Vienna, FoE said the Commission s approach, far from avoiding contamination and protecting health and the environment, was to ensure that GMO trade went unimpeded.

The Commission, the EU s executive arm, dismissed the lobby group s criticism as "nonsense." For some years now, EU governments have disagreed over rules for separating the three farming types -- a concept known in EU jargon as coexistence. Spain, about the only country that grows GMO crops commercially, has the most experience in this area.

While EU countries do not have to legislate in this area, a handful have already done so and several other national laws are in the pipeline. Green groups say no "live" GMOs should be grown in Europe until a EU-wide coexistence law is in place.

The biotech industry takes a very different view, saying GMO crops can grow next to non-GMO varieties with no problem at all. "GM farming cannot coexist in Europe without accepting widespread GM contamination of non-GM crops, or major changes to farming practices. The Commission clearly prefers the first option," Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE) said in a report.

In February, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, who had often said she might propose a EU legal framework in 2006 to set parameters for national laws, disappointed many GMO-sceptic countries by saying that did not now seem necessary. FoE said "...the Commission s approach to coexistence is not one of avoiding contamination and protecting health and the environment but of ensuring that GMO trade goes unimpeded."

The Commission, which has approved a trickle of new GMO products for food and feed use via a legal rubberstamp process since May 2004, was quick to hit back. "That is nonsense -- we are not favouring anybody," said Commission agriculture spokesman Michael Mann. "We are aiming for the most reasonable and sensible system." "Certain GMOs have been approved in the EU market because they have been approved as being completely safe. If farmers wish to grow them, they should be allowed to -- coexistence rules are there to protect those who do not wish to grow GMOs."

GMO SPLIT
Proper coexistence laws, whether EU-wide or national, are seen as essential if the Commission wants to ask member states to allow imports of more GMO crops for growing in Europe s fields: the most controversial area in the EU s biotech debate.

Biotechnology continues to split EU governments, even after the EU lifted its unofficial ban in 2004 on authorising new GMOs by approving a modified sweet maize type to be sold in cans. The biotech industry, backed by many European farmers who are keen to try GMO crop growing, insists that GMO crops can easily exist alongside non-GMO varieties and points to experiences in GMO crop growing in other parts of the world.

"Coexistence is about choice, not prejudice," said a statement issued by SCIMAC, a group of British industry organisations committed to introducing GMO crops into Britain. "Effective coexistence means farmers can make a genuine choice between growing conventional, organic and GM crops. It should not be treated as a pro- or anti-GM issue," SCIMAC said.
(Planet Ark 04/04/2006)