September 7, 2009

The European Union Council of Agricultural Ministers will meet Monday to discuss the economic risks posed by the EU's tough policy of rejecting agricultural imports that contain tiny residues of unauthorised genetically modified material, an EU official said Friday (Sept 4).

The issue made headlines in June when Germany and Spain blocked cargoes of US soy - one of which amounted to 35,000 tonnes - that were found to contain traces of GM corn not yet approved in the EU. After a number of separate incidents a total of 200,000 tonnes of soy had been denied entry by mid-July, according to the EU Commission.

High on the agenda of the Agricultural Council will be the problems faced by the trading block's livestock industry, which is hugely dependent on imports of soymeal as the chief component of animal feed.

Feed and food industry representatives have warned due to tight global stocks the EU faces severe soy shortages and soaring feed prices in the coming months unless it eases its zero-tolerance policy.

The EU's Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel will urge ministers to speed the approval of new GM cultivars, a spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires.

However, no immediate policy decision is expected as this would fall instead under the remit of the Health and Environment commissions.

Despite its dependence on biotech soy, the EU approval process for new cultivars is painfully slow. The EU takes a minimum of 2.5 years and often much longer to authorise new GM strains, compared with an average of 15 months in the US.

Industry groups argue it is impossible to comply with the EU's zero-tolerance policy during the bulk handling of agricultural commodities and are pushing hard for the EU to introduce a low-level tolerance threshold that would allow small amounts of unapproved GM organisms.