Economics of Co-Existence Measures of GM and Conventional Maize in Spain and Germany

Paper prepared for presentation at the Third International Conference onCoexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM basedAgricultural Supply Chains (GMCC)Seville (Spain), 20th and 21st November 2007
In this paper the costs of the two basic co-existence measures buffer strips and discard widths were investigated for the Spanish region Aragon. Furthermore for two Bavarian regions the expenses for buffer strips were analysed. We calculated the costs for each measure considering distances of 20 m, 50 m and 100 m, GM maize adoption rates of 30% and 50% as well as several economic assumptions. The results show an independency of costs from the GM adoption rate. There are however differences in costs with regard to various distances and price differences between GM and non-GM maize.