NOTE: We are constantly fed the line by GM pushers that European resistance to GMOs is decreasing farmer choice.

 But it's long been clear to many observers of the GM issue that this is nonsense. Farmers in countries that allow GM seeds to be cultivated rapidly find that their seed choices are restricted to a few GM varieties, as the best-performing non-GM seeds are withdrawn. This process has been documented in the US (with maize and soy), India (with cotton), and Brazil (with soy).

 Now a study has been published that confirms these observations. In addition, the study concludes that the non-GM adopting countries have more seed choice.

The study finds that there is "no evidence that restrictions and regulations of GM crops in Europe have decreased seed choices for farmers in the non-adopting countries Austria, Germany and Switzerland. In contrast, we observed that in Spain, which has adopted GM maize, the seed market was more concentrated with fewer differentiated cultivars on offer. In Spain, overall numbers of maize cultivars declined, with an increasing number of non-GM cultivars being replaced by GM cultivars."

And far from non-GM-adopting countries losing out or being "left behind"--another GM pusher line--the study found "no detectable yield advantage in GM-adopting countries", even when the analysis was extended to the United States.
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Farmer's choice of seeds in four EU countries under different levels of GM crop adoption
Environmental Sciences Europe 2013, 25:12 doi:10.1186/2190-4715-25-12
Angelika Hilbeck (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Tamara Lebrecht (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Raphaela Vogel (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Jack A Heinemann (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Rosa Binimelis (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Open access:   http://www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/2190-4715-25-12.pdf

Abstract Background
It has been hypothesised that farmers in countries that do not adopt GM crops do or will have fewer seed options. By extension, there is concern that the choices made by countries that have so far rejected GM crops have had an impact on their productivity. To estimate how much real world choice maize farmers have in countries with different degrees of GM crop adoption (Austria, Germany, Spain, Switzerland), we used surveys of seed catalogues from local and regional seed suppliers, transnational seed corporations and public national and European seed registration catalogues as an approximation for real world choices available to farmers. We further compiled and analyzed yield data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO to compare yields over the same period of time in GM-adopting and non- adopting countries.

Results
We found no evidence that restrictions and regulations of GM crops in Europe have decreased seed choices for farmers in the non-adopting countries Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. In contrast, we observed that in Spain, which has adopted GM maize, the seed market was more concentrated with fewer differentiated cultivars on offer. In Spain, overall numbers of maize cultivars declined, with an increasing number of non-GM cultivars being replaced by GM cultivars. Moreover, there was no detectable yield advantage in GM-adopting countries, even when we extended our analysis to the United States.

Conclusions
In the non-adopting European countries of our analysis, farmers have more maize cultivars available to them today than they had in the 1990s despite restricting GM-varieties. Along with the increasing adoption of GM cultivars in Spain, the studied GM-maize adopting country in Europe, came a decline in farmers’ choices of total numbers of available maize cultivars, both among desired GM-cultivars and non-GM cultivars.