New York Times, June 6, 2006

QUESTIONS ON BIOTECH CROPS WITH NO CLEAR ANSWERS

[Rachel's introduction: Can genetically modified (GMO) crops coexist with normal crops without causing genetic contamination? Many people now say No. The biotech industry favors global contamination, and once contamination occurs, it can't be reversed, so a precautionary approach is the only hope for preserving the world's stock of non-GMO crop genes.]

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

AUBINS, Spain -- Enric Navarro was dumbfounded when the letter arrived from the testing lab of the Spanish organic farmers association in late February, telling him his organic crop actually contained 12 percent genetically modified corn.

For Mr. Navarro, finding plants modified by biotechnology was almost as traumatic as finding nuclear waste would have been. For four years, he had lovingly planted hundreds of varieties of trees, shrubs, flowers and herbs to attract just the right mix of insects so he would not need fertilizers or weed killers on his precious seven hectares (17.3 acres).

"If I could not farm organic, I would not farm," said Mr. Navarro, dressed in sweatpants and a stained T-shirt as he sipped coffee in his shed. "I could not sleep at night if I sold that crop."

He decided to burn the corn still in the field, to rid his farm of what he called a "contaminant." But he is still not certain how the unwanted seed got onto his property. There is no way to claim compensation for his economic losses. And he is not sure when it will be safe to use the field for his form of organic farming.

As the European Union begins opening its doors wider to genetically modified crops, Mr. Navarro's byzantine experience serves as a cautionary tale about the uncertainties surrounding the lack of policies to deal with the problems that will almost certainly arise.

"There is a lot that hasn't been worked out," said Julian Kinderlerer, of the Institute of Biotechnical Law and Ethics at the University of Sheffield in England, who has advised the European Union on the issue.

For eight years, Spain was the only country in the union to permit commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops. But in the last 18 months, the European Commission has approved 11 genetically modified seeds for planting in the union, and in 2005, France, Germany, Portugal and the Czech Republic began planting small commercial plots.

In the United States, the vast majority of large commercial farms plant genetically modified crops, like corn or soy, and there is no general effort to distinguish those from nonbiotech crops and foods in farming or food processing.

But the cornerstone of the European Union's new open-door policy is the political conviction that it is possible for genetically altered crops and conventional crops to coexist separately within Europe with proper safeguards, like keeping a distance between fields and imposing a liability system for accidents.

Scientifically, there are strong disagreements about whether "coexistence" is possible, at what cost and even how it should be defined.

"Coexistence is feasible in the vast majority of places, so long as farmers talk to each other and cooperate," said Simon Barber of EuropaBio, an industry group in Brussels. He said that experiences like Mr. Navarro's should be rare.

But many scientists, and not just those with green credentials, think coexistence is not feasible in many European countries, where small, closely spaced farms are the norm.

"My experts all agreed that coexistence often just doesn't work," said Chantal Line Carpentier, an agricultural economist who led a panel of experts that studied the issue under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The study was requested by Mexico in 2002, after genetically modified corn was found in fields in Oaxaca, hundreds of miles from the United States. Mexico feared that the heartier modified variants would edge out its unique native strains.

That report, "Maize and Biodiversity," released in 2004 by the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation, concluded that the genetically engineered corn might well have a long-term effect on Mexico's ecology and biodiversity and that it should be better studied and monitored.

The United States and Canada attacked its conclusions. But some farmers said the report did not go far enough. "Saying that G.M. and non-G.M. farming can coexist is nonsensical," said Julian Rose, an organic farmer from England. "It's like saying that noise and silence can coexist in a room."

The scientific disagreement over coexistence is also partly a question of definition: the biotech industry and new regulations proposed by the European Union would permit some degree of inadvertent intermixing.

The biotech industry considers "coexistence" achieved if mixing is below 0.9 percent and, under proposed regulations, foods in the European Union could be labeled free of genetic modification if they contained less than this amount.

Such labeling is not required in the United States, where the two types of product are regarded as essentially equivalent.

"I think that it's great we are able to commingle all types of corn," said Michael J. Phillips, a vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Washington. "That allows us to sell it at low cost and feed the world."

The concept of coexistence is problematic because there are simply too many ways that mixing occurs, experts said. Wind blows seeds, mills grind crops from different farms, a cookie contains oil made from imported genetically modified soy. The genetically engineered corn in Oaxaca was probably the progeny of corn ears that had been legally imported for animal feed but whose kernels had been illegally used for planting.

With so many routes, environmental groups say, the 0.9 percent limit will inevitably be breached.

Mr. Phillips acknowledged that keeping modified and nonmodified crops apart in fields or in the market was expensive and he ruled out industry compensation. "If you're a small farmer trying to differentiate your product," he said, "the onus is on you to pay for the needed separation."

Last year, Greenpeace tested 40 organic farms in Catalonia. Nearly 20 percent had contamination, from 0.7 percent to 12 percent.

Spain decided to admit cultivation of genetically modified crops in 1998. Twelve percent of corn is now biotech -- about half of it in Catalonia.

Mr. Navarro's two fields are 70 and 100 meters from neighbors' farms, a distance often deemed adequate to prevent mixing. But it was windy last winter, and perhaps some seed blew in, he speculated.

There is no log of who plants genetically modified seeds and nowhere to turn for compensation for his economic losses. Neither the Agriculture Ministry nor the organic farmers association could provide guidance on how to clean up a contaminated field.

Mr. Navarro recently prepared a field in the center of his property for planting corn, hoping that distance and the rows of shrubs will protect it. If not, he says, he will quit.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company