EU MEMBER States would be allowed a national opt-out from the circulation of GM food and feed products on their territory under new proposals put forward by the European Commission.

This new legislation would be in the same vein as the recently passed EU act on GM cultivation, which allows member states to restrict or ban the cultivation of GM crops on their territory, even if they have been approved at an EU level. The latest proposal states that even if a GMO is authorised for use as food or feed at EU level, member states will be able to opt out of allowing that particular GMO to be used in their food chain.

EU food safety commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said the Commission had listened to European citizens and the proposal was in line with the principle of subsidiarity. However, the proposals have received a lukewarm welcome in industry quarters, not least from NFU Scotland, which warned that they would cause distortion across the EU.

The proposals were a key issue for discussion at last week's meeting of COPA, the umbrella group for European farming unions, which was attended by NFUS president Allan Bowie. Speaking from Lisbon, Portugal, Mr Bowie said: "With an increasing world population and growing demand for quality food, GM technology provides an opportunity to increase food production to meet their needs. However, all too often, it is rhetoric rather than science that drives the debate on GM and that is the case here.

"Opening the door to nations or regions introducing unilateral arrangements would wreak havoc on existing trade, undermine competitiveness across Europe and drive up costs for those producers affected," he warned. "Options for growing our own protein for animals remain limited so Europe will continue to be largely reliant on imports for the majority of its protein feed requirements. An estimated 90% of compound feed for the livestock sector currently contains GMO material."

NFU Scotland pigs committee chairman Kevin Gilbert added that there would be a price increase for farmers sourcing non-GM feed: "A move to GM-free rations for pigs would result in a £20 per tonne increase in the cost of feed and mean that each finished pig would cost £7 more to produce. With no current premium or particular demand for pigs fed a non-GM diet, there would be no opportunity to recoup these significant additional costs from the marketplace.

"On poultry, a shift to GM-free diets would increase costs by 2p per kilo on chicken or 4p per dozen for eggs but without an increase in returns, producers would quickly become uncompetitive compared to any competitors who might have access to imported GM soya."

But there was little enthusiasm for the proposal from GM sceptics either - Scottish MEP Alyn Smith described the proposal as "an unworkable fragmentation of the European single market" that "will do nothing to help Scotland remain GM-free."

Mr Smith believes that within a single barrier-free market such as the UK or EU, stopping the circulation of GM products would be difficult - and what's more, Defra would be unlikely to ban circulation of GM products anyway.

He explained: "When it comes to GMOs and the European Commission, it's déjà vu all over again. The Commission tried something similar before when they proposed national opt-outs for GM crop cultivation, which would have fragmented the single market and opened us up to trade challenges. I opposed it then and I'm opposing it now.

"This is an unworkable national opt-out and it won't help Scotland at all. The Commission has to accept that the majority of European citizens don't want GM food, and this Trojan Horse strategy to bring GM food into the food chain is utterly unacceptable."

Meanwhile, ahead of any changes to the approvals regime, a new 'second-generation' dicamba-tolerant GM crop for import has been approved. Monsanto's genetically modified soybean MON87708, for use in food and feed, is genetically engineered to survive when the weedkiller dicamba is sprayed on it.

Dr Helen Wallace of GeneWatch UK commented: "A pesticide arms race is underway in the United States as first generation GM crops fail due to the spread of superweeds and farmers resort to more toxic weedkillers. Dicamba-tolerant GM crops will increase the use of weedkillers, harming the environment and destroying habitat for wildlife where these crops are grown" claimed Dr Wallace "This will lead to yet more resistant superweeds, resistant to more weedkillers, and residues from spraying with dicamba will enter the food chain."