For more than two decades, the European Union has maintained regulations in the sector focused on ensuring that GMOs that producers and manufacturers want to make available to farmers meet all safety guarantees for the environment, other crops (non-modified), and human health. In practice, the current regulations have led to the fact that only one variety of GMO, maize MON810, has been commercially cultivated in the EU to date.

Spain has been the EU country with the largest agricultural area dedicated to the cultivation of the MON810 variety for the past two decades, followed by Portugal.

Carles Vicente, responsible for Organization of the agricultural union of Catalonia Unió de Pagesos, explains that the transgenic variety MON810 “was well received in some agricultural areas where significant damage is caused to crops by the corn borer pests, a lepidopteran whose caterpillars damage the ears and stems of this vegetable”. However, the seeds of this transgenic variety “are more expensive than similar traditional ones and, in some cases, do not achieve as positive results -against the pest- as promised by their manufacturers,” Carles Vicente explains in statements to La Vanguardia.

Over the years and with accumulated experience, many farmers in regions like Urgell have managed to adapt planting periods and cultivation methods to reduce the impact of the corn borer pest without the need to buy and plant the transgenic variety, concludes the representative of Unió de Pagesos. “If they can achieve the same results by planning their crops well with normal corn, why would they plant a more expensive transgenic corn?” rhetorically asks Carles Vicente.

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