Preventing GMO contamination

Summary

Organic farming in Europe is on the up. In 2012, organic farms covered 11.2 million hectares in Europe, of which almost 10 million hectares was in the 28 EU Member States (EU-28). Among the ‘old’ Member States, the so-called EU-15, Spain, Italy, Germany and France were the countries with the biggest organic farming sectors, while Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania were the biggest among the ‘new’ Member States or EU-13. Per capita spending on organic products in Europe in 2012 was €34.7, while total retail sales were around €22.7 billion. And the future continues to look bright: experts estimate that the market will double by 2020 (Meredith, S., Willer, H., 2012).
But there are still a number of factors that could hold back this expected growth, not the least of which is the threat of contamination. In the EU, conventional food and feed containing GMOs have to be labelled, although Regulation 1829/2003 does allow for the adventitious and technically unavoidable presence of a GMO in a given ingredient, provided it remains below 0.9%. By definition, organic products are free from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The EU regulation for organic food and farming specifically states that “GMOs and products produced from or by GMOs shall not be used as food, feed, processing aids, plant protection products, fertilisers, soil conditioners, seeds, vegetative propagating material, micro-organisms and animals in organic production” (European Community, 2007; article 9).