Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
3 The European Union's Regulatory
Framework
Developments inLegislation,Safety
Assessment,andPublicPerception
MariannaSchauzu
Introduction
Over the first fourteen years of commercialization of genetically modi-
fied (GM) crops, the acreage of GM crops has consistently grown each
year, with the number of countries increasing from 6 in 1996 to 25 and a
global area of 134 million hectares in 2009. Herbicide-tolerant soybean
continued to be the principal GM crop, followed by insect and/or her-
bicide tolerant maize, cotton, and rapeseed. The United States, Brazil,
Argentina, India, Canada, China, Paraguay, and South Africa are the
major growers with 64 to 2.1 million hectares of GM crops, followed by
Uruguay, Bolivia, the Philippines, Australia, Burkina Faso, Spain, and
Mexico with 0.8 to 0.1 million hectares of GM crops. Among the ten
countries that grew less than 50.000 hectares are the European Union
(EU) member-states 1 Czech Republic, Portugal, Romania, Poland, and
Slovakia. 2
Many countries have established regulatory frameworks with regard
to the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms (GMO) and
1 In Germany, the GM maize variety MON810 was cultivated until 2008. Invoking of
a safeguard clause under Directive 2001/18/EC by the German Competent Authority
suspends the approval of this GM crop as of April 2009.
2 James, C. 2010. Executive Summary: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM
Crops: 2009. ISAAA Brief 41-2010. ISAAA: Ithaca, NY.
57
Search WWH ::




Custom Search