At the press conference held in Paris yesterday, European maize producers confirmed the spread of diabrotica.  The maize pest Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, also known as the Western corn rootworm, originally came from America.  The CEPM has called for European regulations to be changed and for access to be granted to production facilities that are available so as to safeguard the future of the different maize production sectors in Europe.

The first diabrotica found on European maize was detected in Serbia in 1992.  Since then the insect has gradually spread, reaching a number of countries in Central Europe, plus Italy and France.  The insect feeds on the maize plant, with the larvae on the roots and the adults on the leaves and silk, causing severe damage to plots within a few years of the first outbreak.
 
Efficient pest control methods are available
 
In the United States, Slovakia and Hungary, pest control solutions have proven to be efficient.  According to the American entomologist and world expert on diabrotica, Professor C. Richard Edwards, it is quite possible to control diabrotica with the efficient technical solutions currently available – crop rotation, soil treatment, seed treatment and diabrotica-resistant GM varieties – and when farmers are free to use and combine these intelligently.  Pest control must, of course, be adapted to the geographical, farming and climate conditions and the level of infestation.
 
A Regulation with obvious limitations
 
Under European regulations, diabrotica is listed as a quarantine pest, which means compulsory pest control with major constraints for the maize-growers concerned.
 
Regulatory requirements include the strategy of eradication in areas considered to be free of infestations, but in France, after seven years of eradication, it is patently obvious that this strategy has limited effects.  Last Summer, 300 insects were trapped over some twenty new outbreak sites, providing further evidence that the pest has spread into the regions of Alsace and Rhone-Alps.  This situation has become financially untenable for the maize farmers concerned.  In 2009, a special solidarity fund for the sector was set up, with 50% funding from the State and 50% from the maize sector, to pay compensation to maize growers who have the financial burden of the treatments or who lose income because of crop rotation.  It soon became apparent that the mechanism had financial limits once the outbreak was established.  Professor Edwards stressed this point noting the extremely high cost of the eradication strategy for quite arbitrary results.   
 
Insufficient access to pest control methods
 
American farmers have managed to control diabrotica by using innovative top performance production methods:  seed treatment, GM varieties and crop rotation.  In Europe, where GMOs are viewed with great suspicion, the EU has been deprived of a major pest control method.  At the same time, farmers in the United States have been growing GM maize and soybean, and much of it is exported.  European maize producers cannot accept a situation where they continue to be victims of the inconsistencies of a policy which does not allow them to grow the GMOs which European citizens are consuming as imports.  CEPM President, Christophe Terrain, stated the position:  “The choice must be clear:  either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to GMOs, both imports and crops.” 
 
 
CEPM, the European Confederation of Maize Production
CEPM membership is comprised of the national organisations representing maize producers in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal,  Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
 
Press :         Anne KETTANEH
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