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Food & Waer Wach and OFARM recommend ha:
should be held accounable or all losses associaed wih GMO conaminaion and pay ino a compensaion und o help armers recover he ull coss o heir economic hard-ship caused by conaminaion.
-ship requiremens or GMO crop producion o ensure ha responsibiliy or prevening conaminaion is shared, raher han resing solely on organic and non-GMO producers. These requiremens should include buffer zones or GMO crop ields ha adjoin organic and non-GMO crop ields o reduce GMO and chemical drif. This is especially impor-an in ligh o he pending approval o crops engineered o olerae herbicides such as 2,4-D ha are prone o drif.
and analyzing incidences o conaminaion and associaed economic losses a all levels o he supply chain.
service o help educae GMO, non-GMO and organic arm-ers abou his escalaing problem and how o bes avoid conaminaion problems.
Introduction
In 2011, he U.S. Deparmen o Agriculure convened he Advisory Commitee on Bioechnology and 21s Cenury Agriculure (AC21) o address he issue o he easibiliy o coexisence in agriculure. Heavily weighed wih bioech proponens, he commitee gahered or a series o meeings in 2011 and 2012 wih he ask o esablishing a proocol or coexisence and designing a compensaion mechanism or armers ha are economically harmed by conaminaion rom GMO crops.
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Unorunaely, he commitee was unable o esimae he coss associaed wih GMO presence on non-GMO and or-ganic arms due o a lack o daa. Their inal suggesion or a compensaion mechanism was a orm o crop insurance ha included, in one proposal, a premium o be paid by producers o non-GMO crops.
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The inancial burden associaed wih conaminaion and e-ors o preven conaminaion are signiican. Some o he coss o armers rom conaminaion include loss o access o markes ha require no GMO presence, and long-erm inves-mens associaed wih producing a crop inended or a non-GMO or organic marke, such as organic ceriicaion.
Methodology
In an effor o ill he daa gap ha was used o jusiy an inadequae policy recommendaion by he AC21, Food & Waer Wach and OFARM gahered inormaion rom organic producers and co-op managers on coexisence and GMO conaminaion. We sen a survey o 1,500 armers, ideniied as ceriied organic ield crop producers. Many o hese pro-ducers use he markeing assisance services o he OFARM member co-ops. The survey atemped o quaniy some o he coss associaed wih prevenive measures aken by armers o keep GMO presence off heir arm, he inancial burden o arm-level GMO presence and how GMO presence affecs co-op managers.Ou o he 1,500 surveys sen ou, 87 were sen back or vari-ous reasons. O he 1,413 remaining, we received a 19 percen response rae o 268 responses. Farmers who paricipaed in he survey hail rom 17 saes, predominanly in he Midwes, and grow a wide variey o organic specialy crops and organic ield crops.
Do you think good stewardship is enough to protect organic/non-GMO farmers from unintended GMO contamination?
Inadequate (31%)Very inadequate (37%)Blank (1%)Very adequate (4%)Adequate (15%)Neutral (13%)
How concerned are you about GMO
Very concerned (59%)Concerned (59%)Neutral (6%)Not concerned (6%)Not concernedat all (4%)Blank (0.4%)