Incident details
| Region/Continent and country: |
| Europe / Switzerland |
| Category of incident: |
Contamination
|
| What was contaminated: |
| Seed |
| GM organism involved: |
| Maize |
| Year incident occurred: |
| 1999 |
|
| Route of contamination |
| Cross-pollination |
|
|
 |
Switzerland - maize seed contaminated with GM
The Swiss Department of Agriculture (Budesamt fur Landwirtschaft; Bern) and the district president of Baden-Wurtlemberg (Tubingen, Germany) discovered that Pioneer Hi-Bred's maize seed varieties, Ulla and Benicia, contained Bacillus thuringiensis genes from a variety of maize genetically modified to be resistant to the corn borer. The contamination of the seeds, imported from the United States,
was "probably caused by stray pollen during the growing season," according to Pioneer.
Before the contamination was discovered, Pioneer had sold enough Ulla and Benicia seeds to sow 400 hectares (roughly 0.5% of total maize cultivation in Switzerland), about 200 hectares of which had already been planted.
References- Furst, I. (1999) Swiss soiled seed prompts tolerance question. Nature Biotechnology 17: 629
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