Food Standards Agency
Friday 3 July 2009
Safer food better business banner
AZ-Directory
What's NewRSS
What is RSS?Listen
Listen to this siteMonday 9 March 2009
sheep
Before a genetically modified organism (GMO) can be either grown or marketed in the European Union (EU), it must be granted a marketing consent (i.e. authorised) under European Community (EC) legislation - EC Regulation 1829/2003 laying down the authorisation procedures for GM food and feed (the 'GM Food and Feed Regulation').
This requirement applies to both living GMOs such as rapeseed and soya beans, and to feed and food ingredients derived from the processing of GM crops. The authorisation procedure includes a safety assessment by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). On the basis of these assessments, there is no reason to suppose that GM feed presents any more risk to farmed livestock than conventional feed. GM feed, which is very unlikely to contain viable GMOs, is digested by animals in the same way as conventional feed. Food from animals fed on authorised GM crops is considered to be as safe as food from animals fed on non-GM crops.
Back to topThere have been some concerns that functional transgenes from GM-derived feed materials might be incorporated into livestock products for human consumption (milk, meat and eggs). However, in a statement published on 20 July 2007, EFSA advised that:
Before the GM Food and Feed Regulation came into force, ten plant lines with potential use in animal feed had been licensed for commercialisation in the EU under EC Directive 2001/18 on the deliberate release into the environment of GMOs (the 'Deliberate Release Directive'). Five of these authorisations were revoked in March 2007 following their owners' decision to withdraw the products from the market. Another seven plant lines have since been authorised by the Commission under the GM Food and Feed Regulation. There are, therefore, 12 GMOs authorised for use in the EU, as follows: four herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant maize varieties (from Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta), three herbicide-tolerant maize varieties (from Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta), one insect-resistant maize (Monsanto), two herbicide-tolerant soya bean varieties (Bayer and Monsanto), a herbicide-tolerant sugar beet (Monsanto), and a herbicide-tolerant cotton (Bayer).
Only two of these GMOs - maize varieties from Bayer and Monsanto - have been licensed for cultivation in the EU; the other ten have been approved for import and processing only. Small quantities of GM maize are currently grown commercially in seven Member States: the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Romania.
When the GM Food and Feed Regulation came into force, there were products on the European market derived from certain plant lines that had not been authorised under the Deliberate Release Directive because there was no intention to commercialise the plants themselves in the EU. These GM-derived products - obtained from four varieties of maize, five varieties of cotton, three varieties of oilseed rape and two varieties of yeast - are also authorised under the GM Food and Feed Regulation pending their evaluation by EFSA and decisions on their continued use.
A larger number of GM plant lines, including varieties of maize, soya, oilseed rape and cotton which have not received marketing consents in the EU, have been approved for growing elsewhere in the world, particularly major commodity-exporting countries such as Canada, the USA, Brazil, Argentina, China and India. In general, the EU's authorisation procedures for new GM varieties tend to be slower than those of other countries, a time-lag known as 'asynchronous authorisation'.
Back to topBefore 18 April 2004, GM material for feed use was not required to be labelled. Since then, labelling has been required for feed materials that contain GM or GM-derived material. Labelling is not required for consignments containing adventitious or technically unavoidable traces of GM, up to a threshold of 0.9% for GM varieties approved in the EU. Until April 2007, there was a second threshold of 0.5% for varieties that had received a favourable scientific assessment but had yet to be authorised in the EU, but this was a temporary arrangement which has since expired. According to the European Feed Manufacturers' Association, 85% of the EU's compound feed production is now labelled to indicate that it contains GM or GM-derived material.
Back to topThe spread of biotechnology through commodity-exporting countries has meant that supplies of feed materials to the EU will contain a growing proportion of GM-derived products. It is not possible to quantify this as there is no legal requirement to collect such data, but these imports are considered by the EU feed industry as unavoidable because the EU is not self-sufficient in protein-rich feed. The European Feed Manufacturers' Association estimates that the EU livestock industry as a whole imports 77% of its protein requirements. In addition, 98% of the soya bean meal imported by the EU is sourced from Brazil and Argentina, which are major producers of GM soya. Brazil and Argentina also supply the EU with significant quantities of maize for starch manufacture, the by-products of which go for feed use; much of this will be GM. The UK imports cotton meal from Brazil, India and China, which are major producers of GM cotton.
Identity preservation - i.e., the segregation of GM and non-GM crops after harvest and during transport, storage and subsequent use - is not routinely practised by commodity-exporting countries, but can be achieved at a premium. This additional price will vary according to the state of the commodity markets and the nature of demand for the end products (i.e., milk, meat and eggs for human consumption).
Back to topThe US Department of Agriculture's summary report of the 2008 harvest showed that GM accounted for 80% of the US maize crop, 86% of the cotton crop and 92% of the soya bean crop. The second largest producer of GM soya beans, by volume, after the USA is Brazil, where GM accounts for around 65% of the crop. In Argentina, almost all of the soya planting is now GM, and 65% of Argentine maize plantings are GM. GM cotton accounts for 40% of Brazil's cotton production, 66% of Indian cotton output and and 69% of Chinese cotton.
The global area of GM crops in 2008 was estimated as 125 million hectares in 25 countries (up from an estimated 114.3 million hectares in 23 countries in 2007 and 102 million hectares in 22 countries in 2006). This was the thirteenth consecutive year of increase in the area devoted to GM crops, with much of the increase being in developing countries, who were responsible for 43% of the world's GM crop production. GM crops now occupy over 8% of the world’s cultivable arable land, an area equivalent to approximately five times the size of the UK.
The table below shows (in hectares) the quantities of GM soya, maize, cotton and oilseed rape grown worldwide in 2008 as a proportion of the total harvests:
Sources: Food Standards Agency; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; US Department of Agriculture; American Soybean Association; International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications
Back to topFind out what our other sites have to offer