Implementation Of The Eu Legislation Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms In The German Food And Feed Industry

The worldwide acreage of genetically modified (GM) plants is growing year by year and amounted to 90 million hectares in 2005. Therefore, the European Union implemented a series of legal requirements and regulations which are related to R&D, commercial use and labelling of genetically modified organism (GMO). The food and feed industry is mainly affected by Regulations (EC) No 1829/2003 and 1830/2003 and thus this study aims to analyse the effects of those regulations on the German food and feed industry. The empirical basis was a comprehensive written survey in 2005 with a total of 1.700 filled in questionnaires. According to this survey the German food and feed industry is affected by the increasing use of GM plants and the corresponding GMO legislation although no GM plants are commercially grown in Germany. Around two third of the German feed industry already use GM raw materials while 100 % of the food factories mentioned to avoid GMOs with labelling obligation. Efforts of complying with the requirements of Regulations (EC) No 1829/2003 and 1830/2003 in food and feed industry mainly result in higher personnel efforts, higher costs of raw materials and additional costs of GMO analytics. In total they can rise up to 1.8 % of the turnover in the food industry, while generally they are below 1 % of the turnover in the food industry. The labelling requirements concerning GMOs are mainly fulfilled in the German food and feed industry according to test results of competent German authorities.