www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Bavaria is the largest German state, located in the South-East corner of
Germany, bordering Austria and the Czech Republic. Officials in the southern
part this state, in so-called Lower Bavaria, appear to have been more
receptive to demands of growers and industry to allow genetically modified
crops than has been the norm in the rest of Germany, translated by Mark
Hucko.

The township of the Lower-Bavarian town of Deggendorf has the largest
surface area of any German township, which had been reserved for the
planting of GM crops.

Since the area reserved for the enhanced crops lays near the border with
Upper Austria, which is a self-declared GM-free zone, the farmers on the
Austrian side of the border are up in arms. The Austrian farmers are afraid
of outcrossing of the GM-crops - or as they put it - of contamination of
their conventional fields by genetically enhanced crops.

Two other privately cultivated areas used for the cultivation of genetically
engineered corn are in the Lower Bavarian townships of Freising and Erding.
The rest of the locations with transgenic corn are state-owned properties,
all in the same South-Eastern corner of Germany.

Through the cultivation of GM crops on state-owned lands, Bavaria wants to
evaluate what long-term side-effects can be expected as a result of
cultivation of the enhanced crops.

President of the state agricultural office, Jakob Opperer, expressed his
opinion that, ?It makes no sense for Bavaria to stick its head into the sand
when worldwide there are already more than 400 million hectares of
transgenic crops, and if Bavaria and Germany want to keep up they must make
a start.?

Opperer assured the traditional farmers that they have nothing to fear from
the cultivation of transgenic crops on state-owned property. One of the ways
the state wants to protect the neighbouring farmers is over-sized spacing
between fields with GM crops and the neighbouring fields.

According to the new German genetic engineering laws, anyone who wants to
plant transgenic crops has to register his fields in the local registry
which is open and visible to all interested parties even through internet.
This enables farmers to know whether or not one of their neighbours is
planting transgenic crops.

Modelled after neighbouring Austria, which has banned transgenic crops,
Bavarian ODP political party wants to achieve a similar state-wide ban on GM
crops through a petition.

[www.sueddeutsche.de]

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