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Concept
Biocontainment of genetically modified organisms
Summary
Since the advent of genetic engineering in the 1970s, concerns have been raised about the dangers of the technology. Laws, regulations, and treaties were created in the years following to contain genetically modified organisms and prevent their escape. Nevertheless, there are several examples of failure to keep GM crops separate from conventional ones.
In the context of agriculture and food and feed production, co-existence means using cropping systems with and without genetically modified crops in parallel. In some countries, such as the United States, co-existence is not governed by any single law but instead is managed by regulatory agencies and tort law. In other regions, such as Europe, regulations require that the separation and the identity of the respective food and feed products must be maintained at all stages of the production process.
Many consumers are critical of genetically modified plants and their products, while, conversely, most experts in charge of GMO approvals do not perceive concrete threats to health or the environment. The compromise chosen by some countries - notably the European Union - has been to implement regulations specifically governing co-existence and traceability. Traceability has become commonplace in the food and feed supply chains of most countries in the world, but the traceability of GMOs is made more challenging by the addition of very strict legal thresholds for unwanted mixing. Within the European Union, since 2001, conventional and organic food and feedstuffs can contain up to 0.9% of authorised GM material without being labelled GM (any trace of non-authorised GM products would cause shipments to be rejected).
In the United States there is no legislation governing the co-existence of neighboring farms growing organic and GM crops; instead the US relies on a "complex but relaxed" combination of three federal agencies (FDA, EPA, and USDA/APHIS) and the common law tort system, governed by state law, to manage risks of co-existence.
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