Advisory letter on ‘Bird feed and flower seed mixtures: potential for disseminating genetically modified seeds’

COGEM commissioned a research project to investigate whether seeds of genetically modified plants could be present in bird feed and seed mixtures for flower patches. The resulting research report offers an overview of plant species in seed mixtures and the genetically modified variants known of these species. The researchers have demonstrated that despite the measures taken by some producers to prevent the presence of GM seeds in seed mixtures, several of the analysed bird feed mixtures contained seed of (approved) GM oilseed rape lines. No GM seeds were found in the flower seed mixtures that were analysed. COGEM points out that this is a possible dissemination route for GM seeds and makes recommendations on improving the monitoring of GM oilseed rape and, in future, other GM crops that are able to survive and become established in the Netherlands.

The COGEM advisory letter can be downloaded on this webpage (‘Download publication’). The research report can be downloaded here.