Coordination and Cooperation in Early Adoption of GM Crops in Germany

Inter-farm coordination or cooperation with adjacent farmers in Germany is not necessary to achieve coexistence. Large farms chose intra-farm coordination to manage the construction of buffer zones within their own fields and to avoid the planting of Bt maize close to their neighbors. These were some of the conclusions on The Role of Coordination and Cooperation in Early Adoption of GM Crops: The Case of Bt Maize in Brandenburg, Germany by Nicola Consmüller, Volker Beckmann, and Christian Schleyer of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

The German regulatory framework has moderate ex-ante regulations and strict ex-post liability rules to protect conventional and organic farming from possible economic damages caused by transgenic plants and to ensure coexistence. These regulations, however, impose additional costs on those farmers who intend to plant Bt maize. The case study noted that costs arising from ex-ante regulations and ex-post liability were not considered very important for Bt maize farmers.

See the AgbioForum article at http://www.agbioforum.org/v12n1/v12n1a05-consmuller.htm