"There has not been, and will not be, any tolerance at all for GMO contamination of organic products," the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)
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EU farm chief defends more GMOs in organic farming
By Jeremy Smith
REUTERS, 23 January, 2006
BRUSSELS - Europe‘s farm chief defended her plans to permit more genetically modified (GMO) content into organic farming on Monday, saying it would be too costly for farmers to achieve higher purity in their organic produce.
Questioned about her draft law that would allow products with up to 0.9 percent of GMO content to retain a label of "EU organic," EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said the recommended labeling threshold was a realistic one.
"It's a standard threshold in the regulation," she told a news conference, referring to the 0.9 percent label level that is already enshrined in current EU law on biotech food and feed.
"We live in the real world. The lower we go (on a threshold), the more expensive it will be for organic producers. We have to find the right balance," she said.
Since some organic farmers might struggle financially to ensure their produce met higher purity standards, they would then not be able to sell that produce at the higher premium that organic items usually command -- and so lose income.
Fischer Boel's proposed organic regulation, now being considered by EU agriculture ministers, would still make it illegal to use GMOs in organic farming knowingly. The 0.9 percent level refers to accidental or unavoidable contamination.
"The Commission has held firm on this so far and there are no signs of them moving," one EU diplomat said.
"If you have a threshold for non-GM produce ... it's another step to say that we'll have a different threshold for organic. It'll be a major issue for some member states as this gets debated over the months," he said.
Environmental groups are outraged by the proposal, with one recently attacking it as the "thin end of a wedge which will allow the creeping contamination of organic food across Europe."
"Should GM contamination enter the organic food chain, organic farmers will necessarily be economically damaged," the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) said in a statement.
"There has not been, and will not be, any tolerance at all for GMO contamination of organic products," it said, adding that the EU had a duty to ensure that all farmers who wanted to stay GMO-free were properly protected in the event of contamination.
In the EU-25, the amount of organic farmland is around 5.7 million hectares, or some 3.5 percent of its total agricultural area. Around 175,000 farms are now run organically.