contamination

On 31 Octobers, cottons fields were harvested in Texas, US. The cotton was then processed into cottonseed oil and cotton meal and sold as animal feed in the US and Mexico. Most of it might already been eaten up by now. One of the fields however was not a normal field but a field trial from Monsanto. A week after the harvest, scientists found that their experimental Bt cotton field had gone.
About a quarter ton of GM cotton got harvested together with 60 tons conventional tons from the neighbouring fields. This harvest was then stored in a facility with about 20.000 tons of cotton and processed from there.
That's adds up to one field trial potentially contaminating a harvest up to 80.000 times its own weight.

In 2007, the GM potato Amflora was cultivated on nearly 450 ha in Germany. The goal of the “field trial” as to produce seed potatoes just in case Amflora would be allowed for commercial cultivation. But another result now becomes quite obvious: GM potatoes cannot be kept under control and they cannot be cleared off the field completely. In summer 2008, despite repeated controls Amflora potatoes are happily growing on the field.

On 8 September, the EU Commission allowed the import of a new GM soy event that so far is mainly grown in the US. This does not only open the way for new GM soy in animal feed but it might also work as an incentive to allow its cultivation in South American countries because they now don't have to worry that soy contaminated with this event could not be exported to Europe.

On 10 October 2007, the EU standing committee on GMOs came up with a decision that takes some time to digest - literally.

Once again, Greenpeace found GM contamintion in random samples from supermarkets - in pet food in the Netherlands this time. What's amazing are the high percentages of contamination that were found. Nine of the 17 samples contained up to 40 and 60% of GM maize or soy (see list.

After years of arguments the German government finally decided on changes on a number of regulations for GM crops. What's hailed as an improvement in fact makes matters worse and some of the pressing issues have still not been tackled. What made it to the main TV news was that GM maize now should be planted 150 m away from conventional maize, or 300 m from organic maize. Or less if the GM farmer makes an agreement with his neighbours. It doesn't take much imagination to picture the pressure that can mount in a village if one farmer wants to grow GM maize... But it also means that their neighbours will have to label any kind of GM contamination, even below 0.9% because agreeing to a lesser safety distance clearly could technically been avoided.

Only less than two months after Greenpeace had detected illegal contamination of maize pellets in the harbour of Rotterdam, the EU commission tried to solve the problem by approving the maize Herculex RW (59122) as feed and food. The Standing Committee however did not agree with that on Monday.
In April, illegal contamination was detected in US maize in the harbours of Rotterdam and Dubin: maize feed was contaminated with the GM maize Herculex RW (DAS-59122) that is not approved in the EU. Contamination with this maize is therefore forbidden - no matter how big that contamination is.

Gentechnisch veränderter Reis ist in den Handel gelangt, obgleich er weder in den Vereinigten Staaten noch in der Europäischen Union eine Zulassung besitzt. Wie es dazu kommen konnte, ist derzeit noch nicht geklärt.

Food in the EU doesn't have to be labeled as containing GM ingredients if it contains material of less than 0.9% content as long as it is "adventitious" or "technically unavoidable". But companies have to label it, if they have done nothing to avoid the contamination. The clause "adventitious" or "technically unavoidable" in the EU Regulation 1829/2003 on GM labelling is not a simple threshold.

Since their introduction in 1996, GM crops have contaminated food, feed, seed and the environment right across the globe. Over 60 have been documented in 27 countries on 5 continents. In June 2005, GeneWatch and Greenpeace launched the GM Contamination Registerto record them.

It includes all known incidents of contamination arising from the intentional or accidental release of GMOs. as well as illegal plantings of GM crops and the negative agricultural side-effects that have been reported. There may however be others that are, as yet, undetected.
The latest incidents in this list is New Zealand's investigation into GM contamination of maize which concludes that this was caused by imported GM soybean, residues of which were left in the storage facilities also used for the maize.

www.gmcontaminationregister.org