Commission Recommendation 2003/556/EC on guidelines for the development of national strategies and best practices to ensure the coexistence of genetically modified crops with conventional and organic farming.

This Recommendation provides a list of general principles and elements for the development of national strategies and best practices to be followed by Member States for the purpose of coexistence of genetically modified crops with conventional and organic farming. Coexistence refers to the ability of farmers to make a practical choice between conventional, organic and genetically modified crop production, in compliance with the legal obligations for labelling and purity standards. The scope of the guidelines extends from agricultural production on the farm up to the first point of sale. Section 2 provides a list of general principles to be taken into account by Member States, such as transparency and stakeholder involvement, science-based decisions, proportionality, research and sharing of research results. Further is provided a non-exhaustive list of factors that should be taken into account, such as level of coexistence to be achieved, labelling threshold values and specificity to crop species and crop varieties. Section 3 contains an indicative catalogue of measures for coexistence.