Agribusiness urged to reassure consumers on GM soy
Date: 04-Apr-03
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Peter Blackburn
But a U.S. oilseed industry leader noted that GM soy was already widely accepted and traded in the world market.
"More information and research is needed to show the benefits of GM crops to consumers," Eduardo Martins, President of Brasilia-based environmental consultants E.Labore told a world oilseed crushers conference.
Marketing has previously focused on economic benefits for farmers.
Martins said he expected a long-awaited decision later this month from a Brazilian federal court to clear the way for commercial use of GM soybeans. Alone among the top three growers, Brazil still bans GM soy, though it allowed a loophole this year.
CONSUMER DISTRUST
In the European Union, efforts are being made to restore consumer confidence in food safety, which has been shattered by outbreaks of so-called mad cow and foot-and-mouth diseases.
Patrick Deboyser, head of food law and biotechnology at the European Commission, said that European consumers and food retailers needed to be better informed so that they could choose whether to risk GM foodstuffs.
New EU legislation is expected to come into force next year for mandatory labelling of GM food and animal feed irrespective of whether it contains genetically modified DNA or protein, he said.
"Vegetable oils will have to be labelled, but the big change will be for animal feed," Deboyser told Reuters.
European consumers have unknowingly been eating meat from animals fed with GM soy meal.
After the new EU legislation, Deoboyser said that the import of three new GM food products was expected to be approved - BT11 sweet corn produced by Swiss firm Syngenta AG and U.S. Monsanto Co.'s (MON.N) GA21 and NK603 Roundup Ready maize.
Brazil's Martins told Reuters that the key point was the potential environmental risk and this would take time to assess. "It must be analyzed from the Brazilian perspective," he said, adding that this should delay approval to grow GM crops.
"At the end of the day it will be up to the market to decide whether to use GM products," he said adding that the "tug of war" between government, farmers and environmentalists will continue.
Problems about the control of production and marketing of GM crops and segregation and labelling of food products still had to be resolved, he noted.
FACE THE FACTS
But Al Ambrose, immediate past-chairman of the U.S. National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA), said that people should look at what was happening in the world soy market.
He pointed out that more than half the soybeans and soy meal imported by the EU for animal feed was transgenic, despite official curbs.
Deboyser added that half the world soybean crop was transgenic and that in the United States and Argentina, the world's No.1 and No.3 growers, the GM share was 73 percent and 93 percent respectively.
China, the world's largest soybean importer, took GM supplies, he said, noting a phenomenal increase in purchases to some 16 million tonnes in 2002/03, from zero in 1992.