Review Says GM Crop Ban in Europe Is Counterproductive

By denying farmers access to potentially cost-reducing technologies, banning genetically modified (GM) crops could be counterproductive for the future competiveness of European Union agriculture. This was forwarded by Matty Demont, associate principal staff agricultural economist of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Africa Rice Center and colleagues in “GM Crops in Europe: How Much Value and for Who?” published in the December 2007 issue of the journal EuroChoices.

The authors reviewed the global impact literature and assessed the potential value of GM crops for Europe, in addition to studies on GM maize, sugar beet and oilseed rape in Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the EU. They found out that the potential annual value of GM technologies for single Member States ranges from €0.1 million to €42 million. Herbicide tolerant sugar beet was identified as the EU’s most promising first-generation GM technology.

An abstract of the article is available at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-692X.2007.00075.x while the PDF of the whole article is available for subscribers.