EU's resistance to GMOs hurts the poor
By James Wachai The bitter dispute between the U.S., Canada, and
Argentina, on one hand, and the European Union (EU), on the
other, over the latter's restrictive policies towards
genetically modified foods reaches what is likely to be an
acrimonious peak this week when the World Trade Organization
(WTO) rules if the EU has violated trade rules by blocking foods
produced using modern biotechnology techniques. Acrimonious
because the EU is preemptively threatening to dishonor the
verdict if it's in favor of the U.S., Canada and Argentina. The
EU is keen on blocking genetically modified foods without
scientific justification.
The dispute dates back to the spring of 1998 when five EU member
states -Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg - issued a
declaration to block GMOs approvals unless the European
Commission (EC) proposed legislation for traceability and
labeling of GMOs. A year later in June 1999, EU environment
ministers imposed a six-year de facto moratorium on all GMOs.
The official moratorium has since lapsed but EU's recalcitrance
towards GMOs and obstruction remains.
EU's ban on GMOs has exasperated the U.S., Canada and Argentina
- leading growers of crops with GMO enhancements - to initiate a
WTO dispute settlement process against the EU in May 2003,
arguing that the moratorium harmed farmers and their export
markets, particularly for corn and soybeans, and which are
critical sources of revenue for farmers.
Now, the WTO's verdict is due today(February 7, 2006). They have
already reported it will be the longest report document of its
kind. This suggests that EU political pandering may have seeped
into the WTO process complicating what should be a simple trade
dispute resolution. This is unfortunate for more than just the
two parties involved.
The stakes are too high, not only to the parties in dispute, but
to the entire world, and especially developing world. The
dispute is not just another transatlantic trade skirmish. At
stake are consumers' rights to have real choices with regard to
their food, and farmers' freedoms to use approved tools and
technologies to safely produce those food choices.
The EU has never justified its restrictive policies towards
GMOs, which makes everybody question the motive behind GMOs ban.
When it slapped a moratorium on GMOs, the EU cited undefined
safety concerns as the reason for the drastic action. Their own
scientists and regulators have repeatedly addressed and
dismissed the safety issues for these GMO crops. Were similar
undefined, precautionary principle standards applied to other
growing practices - such as organic - Europe would have to
similarly ban all foodstuffs.
In the absence of verifiable scientific justification to block
GMOs from its territories, the EU is guilty of violating the
Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the Agreement
on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS),
to which it is a signatory. The SPS, particularly, recognizes
that countries are entitled to regulate crops and food products
to protect health and environment. The agreement requires,
however, "sufficient scientific evidence" to support
trade-restrictive regulations on crops and food products to
protect the environment.
The EU's argument in the WTO dispute is greatly eroded by the
fact that various scientific bodies have, repeatedly, vindicated
GMOs. For example, the United Kingdom-based Institute for Food
Science and Technology (IFT) - an independent body for food
scientists and technologists - has declared that "genetic
modification has the potential to offer very significant
improvements in the quantity, quality and acceptability of the
world's food supply."
In 2004, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC), a division of
the National Academy of Sciences (NAC), issued a report in which
it found that genetic engineering is "not an inherently
hazardous process," calling fears of the anti-biotech crowd
"scientifically unjustified."
In June 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a
report that acknowledged the potential of genetically modified
foods to enhance human health and development. The report,
Modern Food Biotechnology, Human Health and Development, noted
that pre-market assessments done so far have not found any
negative health effects from consuming GM foods. Surely, no
respectable scientific body would endorse a flawed innovation.
These findings may help to explain why agricultural biotech
innovators and product developers continue to thrive. Cropnosis
- a leading provider of market research and consultancy services
in the crop protection and biotechnology sectors - estimates
that the global value of biotech crops stands at $5.25 billion
representing 15 percent of the $34.02 billion crop protection
market in 2005 and 18 per cent of the $30 billion 2005 global
commercial seed market.
The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Applications (ISAAA), in a report released early this year,
reveals that since the commercialization of the first GM crop a
decade ago, 1 billion acre of land, in 21 countries, is under
biotech crops. In 2005 alone, the global area of approved
biotech crops was 222 million hectares, up from 200 million
acres in 2004. This translates to annual growth rate of 11
percent.
The lucrative nature of GM crops - they yield high and require
less pesticides and herbicides - is driving many developing
countries to embrace them. However, many, especially in Africa,
where agriculture constitutes 30 per cent of the continent's
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), have been reluctant cultivate GMOs
for fear of losing their European agricultural markets. This is
why Europe's accession to GMOs remains critical to Africa's
adoption of GMOs. The EU, by default, is preventing many poor
countries to benefit from GMOs.
If Europe opens its doors to GMOs, many poor countries stand to
gain from this technology and both the economic as well as
life-saving benefits it has to offer. Many in poor countries,
predominantly, live on agriculture. They must be given a chance
to benefit from modern agricultural technologies such as
biotechnology. Denying poor countries an opportunity to reap
from crop biotechnology, which has proved so successful in other
parts of the world, amounts to condemning billions of people who
live in poor countries to a slow and painful death.