At the conference on co-existence, held from the 4th to 6th of April in Vienna, Jeremy Sweet, environmental consultant and Vice-President of the GMO panel of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) called for a clear regulation of the threshold values for permissible contamination of conventional seeds with GMOs. It is absolutely necessary to have the same threshold values EU-wide, which should be scientifically based. The lower the threshold values would be laid down the higher would be the costs for the European seeds producers. With low values of 0.1 to 0.3 % very extensive separation procedures or even special zones for the seed production would be required. This could result in higher costs for the farmers. This again would weaken internationally the terms of the competition of the EU-agricultural production.
Further, said Sweet, the question of necessary safety distances between fields with conventional and with GM-seeds has to be settled. Most of the studies, which have been conducted in Spain, Germany, France and Great Britain, came to the conclusion, that co-existence is quite possible, if suitable safety distances will be kept. Thereby the extent of the...