Adventitious Presence: Inadvertent Commingling and Coexistence among Farming Methods

Introduction Adventitious presence deserves discussion to understand whether farmers engaged in conventional, organic, and transgenic agriculture can coexist as neighbors using known and practical agronomic practices. When a farmer buys and sows certified seed of his or her chosen crop variety, the crop starts with the highest degree of purity deemed commercially achievable, which then becomes increasingly less pure as various substances infiltrate at every step—from farm to granary to processor to retailer to consumer. The term adventitious presence, which describes such undesirable commingling, is new to many people, but it is encountered frequently in discussions of biotechnology and crop production. In the context of transgenic crops, the term describes the inadvertent presence of transgenic seeds or other material in conventional and organic crops. With respect to approved transgenic commodity crops, the issue is not agronomic performance, food safety, environmental protection, or animal or human health, because regulatory agencies have passed favorable judgment on these considerations when approving commercial release. Rather, concerns about adventitious presence are economic concerns: market access, contract specifications, and consumer preferences. The worry is that the mere presence of the transgenic materials decreases the value of the conventional or organic crop, especially in export markets.