Incident details
| Region/Continent and country: |
| Europe / Greece |
| Category of incident: |
Contamination
|
| What was contaminated: |
| Seed |
| GM organism involved: |
| Maize |
| Year incident occurred: |
| 2004 |
|
| Route of contamination |
| Imported contaminated seed |
|
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Greece – maize seed contamination
In the spring of 2004, Greek authorities discovered GM-contaminated maize and cotton seed on the Greek market. In many cases, the contaminated maize seed had been sold to farmers without their knowledge and had already been sown in various small areas, mainly in northern Greece. According to official statements from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Greek government traced and destroyed 118 hectares of maize fields contaminated with the GM maize.
Pioneer and Syngenta offered the farmers compensation, provided they sign a contract. By signing, the farmers were bound not to oppose the company. If they did, they would have to return the amount paid in compensation. This compensation differed from farmer to farmer, from area to area and from company to company. In some cases, a company offered to cover the farmer’s expenses up to that time. In other cases, they offered to cover a part of the lost profit or a part of the subsidy per hectare.
The General Confederation of the Greek Agrarian Association (GESASE) decided to support some farmers in a lawsuit against the companies. In March 2005, GESASE announced that they had filed a lawsuit against Syngenta on behalf of farmers who had cultivated GM-contaminated hybrid seeds. GESASE filed a second lawsuit against the Greek authorities, for allowing GMcontaminated seeds to enter the domestic market. In June 2005, GESASE announced support for another group of farmers against the company Pioneer HI-Bred, and a third lawsuit was filed. All the cases were scheduled to be heard in March 2006.
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Further information
General Confederation of the Greek Agrarian Association (GESASE). For information in Greek about the court case. >
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??????? ????? & ???. ???????. (Ministry of Agriculture information) June 10, 2006. >
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