By David Evans, Reuters via Checkbiotech

Farmers in five European Union countries, including France and Germany, have begun commercial growing of genetically modified (GMO) maize and industry officials said on Thursday the trend will increase next year.

Spain has long been Europe's GMO pioneer, growing thousands of hectares for its animal feed industry. But farmers elsewhere have been wary of the new strains, which still face skepticism from consumers and at times violent opposition from campaigners.

Europe's harvest this autumn will see small amounts of Bt maize, gene-altered for resistance to the corn borer pest, reaped in France, Germany, Portugal and the Czech Republic to be used for animal feed.

The sown areas are -- apart from Spain -- limited to hundreds of hectares but the trend does allow the biotech lobby to claim something of a breakthrough on an issue that has caused major trade friction between the EU and United States.

"I find it encouraging that this year, the tenth of commercial cultivation, five European member states have given farmers the choice to grow GM crops," said Simon Barber, Director of Plant Biotechnology at EU biotech lobby EuropaBio.

The Bt maize was one of 18 crops approved by the EU before its unofficial moratorium on new GMO authorizations that ran from 1998 until last year. But the crops remain controversial.

Reports earlier this month that France had at least 500 hectares grown to GMO maize made it to the front-pages in a country home to anti-globalization campaigner Jose Bove, now on trial again for destroying test fields of GMO maize.

There were only 17 hectares grown in France last year.

Environmental fears

Environmental campaigners say the new gene-altered strains threaten to destroy local ecosystems through cross-pollination, creating a minefield of liability litigation.

"These GMOs can spread through nature and interbreed with natural organisms," environmental lobby Greenpeace says.

"Their release is 'genetic pollution' and is a major threat because GMOs cannot be recalled once released."

But industry officials say the example of Spain, where this year's GMO maize harvest will top 50,000 hectares, has shown that both conventional and GMO maize can be grown in a country.

"Spanish farmers have been growing GM maize for six years and they have proved that coexistence is possible," Barber said.

The Spanish maize producers' association estimates between 70,000 and 80,000 hectares were sown to GMOs this year, though some were lost to the severe drought, which decimated all of the country's agricultural output.

"(With GM crops) we are protected against adversity much better than we were before," the association's president, Agustin Marine said. "There are very clear economic benefits."

So far, around 20 percent of the country's maize area is sown to GMO, but Marine said this figure will rise, particularly if new strains with a built-in resistance to powerful pesticides are approved for commercial planting in the EU.

"I can assure you 80 percent of the maize grown would be GMO, because weeds are very expensive to kill," Marine said.

Elsewhere in Europe, the take-up has been slow so far.

Industry officials said 767 hectares had been declared in Portugal and estimated 150 hectares in the Czech Republic.

In Germany, only 568 hectares were registered for commercial production of GMO crops in 2005, said Jochen Heimberg, spokesman for government food safety agency BVL.

"This is grown on 58 locations," he said. "Originally 75 locations were registered but some were withdrawn."

The compulsory registration of GMO output and the government's publication of locations, has caused some farmers to think twice about switching to the new crops.

"Farmers making registrations get bombarded with lawyers' letters from nearby farms threatening damages and visits from environmental groups threatening demonstrations or paying for lawyers to help nearby people sue them," a grains analyst said.

© Reuters 2005