Aim

The location register enables environmental monitoring of potential adverse effects of genetically modified organisms (GMO) on the environment and human or animal health. The register provides publicly available information about experimental releases and cultivation of GMO in Germany. In addition, the register serves coexistence measures by informing conventional farmers about GMO cultivation in their neighbourhood, where agreements and/or isolation distances can be implemented to separate GMO from non-GMO cultivation systems.

Legal Principles

The German GMO Location Register was established in February 2005 by the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) according to the German Genetic Engineering Act and the EU Directive 2001/18/EC. Any cultivation or experimental release of GMO shall be notified to the location register.

Content

The location register records the geographical location and reference of the sites with cultivation or experimental release of GMO in form of exact cadastral data, field size, notification date, and information about the GMO.

The public access to the information in the location register is provided via internet on the BVL homepage, taking into account that the person-related data of the farmers are for restricted use by authorized stakeholders only. Information about single person-related data is given to public applicants with plausible interest (e. g. third party farmers) in case of potential conflicts with coexistence measures, e.g. isolation distances. The decision for release of person-related data is taken by the BVL dependent on a written application with verification of a plausible interest. In all cases data security and data protection have to be guaranteed.

The details of the GMO Location Register are presented here.