Brussels, 29/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - In 2014, farmers who grow GMOs in the countries of the EU (Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania) planted a total of 143,016 hectares of insect resistant biotech maize, which is less than 1% of global GM crop production, according to the latest annual report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA). EuropaBio, the European biotech industries association, voiced its concern on Wednesday 28 January at the ground that will have to be made up and the damage being done to growth, innovation and investment in Europe, it argues.
“Europe was the cradle of GM invention but now risks becoming the world's farming museum: we are lagging behind all other continents when it comes to GM crop cultivation, because our farmers are still being denied the freedom to choose which safe products to grow while EU researchers face protests and destruction of field trials”, said Beat Späth, director of agricultural biotechnology at EuropaBio.
In 2014, GM cultivation in the EU decreased slightly mainly due to limited choice for farmers in the EU caused by a lack of product authorisations as well as to, in the view of EuropaBio “legally questionable and scientifically untenable national bans”. EuropaBio also regrets that, although 48 GM crops have already been approved for import, the Commission has put further authorisations on hold, which is bad news for livestock farmers, given Europe's import dependency on GM soybeans as the main protein source for farm animals (see EUROPE 11228).
The ISAAA report reveals that, in 2014, 18 million farmers around the world planted 181.5 million hectares of GM crops in 28 countries, up from 175.2 million hectares in 27 countries in 2013. By way of comparison, these are more farmers than all EU farmers (around 12 million), and they grow GMOs on an area much larger than the entire EU arable land (some 104 million hectares), EuropaBio highlights.
In the leading group are the United States (73.1 million hectares), Brazil (42.2 million), Argentina (24.3 million), India and Canada (equal on 11.6 million) and China (3.9 million). Spain, the EU's largest grower of GMOs, is in 17th place (0.1 million hectares). Portugal is in 22nd place (less than 0.005 million), the Czech Republic 24th, followed by Romania and Slovakia (ahead of Costa Rica and Bangladesh).
GMO cultivation in the EU is currently restricted to MON 810 maize but might take off from this spring because of the new European directive that will give member states greater, though still very closely controlled, latitude, allowing them to restrict or ban cultivation within their borders of GMOs that have been authorised at EU level (see EUROPE 11230). (AN)