October 9, 2010

 

                 

According to draft proposals that the US and other big grain exporters called unfeasible, the EU is considering allowing a trace amount of unapproved genetically modified material in imports of animal feed.

 

The proposals from the European Commission are designed to avoid a repeat of last year's disruption to animal feed supplies in Europe, when cargos of soy from the US were blocked for a couple months after traces of unapproved material were found.

 

The EU authorised several of the biotech crops that had been causing the problem in November, but the new proposal is meant to be a longer-term solution.

 

However, importers and the EU's major trade partners criticised the proposals for only covering imports for feed, and not food, which they said would not work in practice. Under the proposals, the zero tolerance policy will remain for food.

 

"Grain shipments from third countries are indistinguishably used for food and feed purposes in the EU. Any attempt to separate into 'food-only' and 'feed-only' would pose insurmountable difficulties for trade operators and EU food and feed processors," said the ambassadors of the US, Brazil, Canada and Argentina this week.

 

Environmentalists said the EU should maintain zero tolerance of unapproved genetically modified organisms in food and feed, and that exporters in other parts of the world should work harder to avoid contamination.

 

"I don't see why the customer - in this case the EU - should accept a diktat from the seller to allow contamination with products that have not been approved as safe in Europe," a Greenpeace activist on agriculture issues, Marco Contiero, said.

 

The commission proposal said the need for a solution to the problem of traces of genetically modified material in imports was most pressing for Europe's feed and livestock sector. Potential trade disruptions would much more affect the feed sector than the food sector. It appears therefore appropriate to limit the scope of this regulation to animal feed. The commission's "technical solution" sets new rules for EU customs authorities on how to interpret tests on grain cargos.

 

The tolerance margin of 0.1% will only apply to biotech crops that have been approved in the exporting country and for which EU approval is pending. But that should cover many of the soy and corn varieties that have been causing the problem.

 

Europe's seed-crushing industry has an annual turnover of about EUR20 billion, or US$28 billion, and last year imported some 13 million tonnes of soy, producing 10 million tonnes of animal feed meal and 2.5 million tonnes of oil, almost half of which was used in food.

 

The head of the European seed-crushers' association Fediol, Nathalie Lecocq, said that for her industry, the food and feed market are completely interlinked, so a feed-only solution would fail.

 

"It would put at risk the market for oil, and potentially the whole of our soybean imports. If you can't rely on 40% of your outlet for oil, you would have to consider if it's economically viable to continue crushing in Europe," Lecocq said.

 

The proposals are due to be discussed by the EU's 27 commissioners before publication. After that, it needs to be approved by a committee of EU government experts to become law, where it could face resistance from countries where opposition to biotech in food remains strong.