Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Simulations were carried out on landscapes representing two French
regions: the
departement
1
of “Pyr enees-Atlantiques” in southwest
France for seed production and the “Poitou-Charentes” region in west-
ern France for crop production. Two scenarios were built for the pres-
ence of GMOs in the landscape (10 percent and 50 percent share
of GMOs in the relevant crop), three agricultural production systems
(GMO-based, conventional, and organic) as well as different thresholds
for adventitious GM presence: 0.1 percent and 0.9 percent for crop pro-
duction and 0.1 percent, 0.3 percent, and 0.5 percent for seed produc-
tion. In a first step the economic performance of the different crops
is investigated by reviewing literature, collecting publicly available sta-
tistical information, and searching databases as well as contacting and
interviewing experts. The costs of coexistence measures for the different
crops, farm types, and regions as suggested as outcome agronomic analy-
sis were calculated in a second step using publicly available data sources
of costs of agronomic practices.
2.1 EconomicEffectsinMaizeCropProduction
Variable production costs of 687
/ha form
the baseline for the calculation of costs of coexistence measures in maize
crop production in France resulting in a gross margin of 743
€
/ha and an income of 950
€
/ha if com-
pensation payments were taken into consideration (Theyssier, 2004).
Because the costs of several coexistence measures differ depending on
the potential economic performance of the cultivated GM maize (for
which no empirically sound data are available for France so far) it is
assumed in a first case that GM maize has the same gross margin as non-
GM maize, while an economic advantage of 43
€
/ha of GM maize com-
pared to non-GM varieties is considered in a second case (Menrad and
Reitmeier, 2006).
€
1
French administrative district.
