Euro grain - EU keeps buying gm crops despite flap
Date: 16-Sep-99
Country: FRANCE
Moreover, millions of European consumers each day eat food - from
chicken breasts and chocolate bars to cheese - produced using these
commodities.
Those closely involved with the issue say this is a quirk that has
emerged in Europe's debate over GM crops, and they agree consumers may
not realise it.
"I'm afraid many consumers are not fully aware of how their chicken, for
example, is produced using GM material. We'll be working on changing
that by the end of the year," Benedikt Haerlin, international
coordinator of Greenpeace's GM crop campaign, told Reuters.
Trade sources said it was ironic that given the tremendous outcry over
GM crops and the EU's proven record of shutting its doors to
controversial food products - North American hormone-treated beef, for
example - EU policymakers have not halted imports of commodities which
could contain GM material.
"The simple answer is that Europe needs them," a source close to the
debate over GM crops said.
The EU particularly needs soybeans, which are mostly used in feeding
chicken, hogs and dairy cows, because they are an excellent source of
protein. Soy is also used to produce lecithin, which turns up in
chocolate and other products.
"Soybeans play a very important role in feeding livestock," the source
said. "Europe needs that protein and soybeans have been the answer to
that for a long time."
"I think the reliance of Europe on soybeans is something that has kept
policy-makers from putting a ban on them," a grain trade source said.
According to industry newsletter Oil World, the EU imported an estimated
16 million tonnes of soybeans between September 1998 and August 1999.
Almost all of the soy comes from Brazil, Argentina and the United
States, and the latter two suppliers have made no distinction between GM
and non-GM soy.
In the United States, for example, more than 35 percent of all corn and
55 percent of all soybeans produced are now genetically engineered.
CHANGES AHEAD?
Greenpeace's Haerlin said the environmental group "deplored" the lack of
an EU ban on GM crops and planned to begin raising awareness about what
goes into the meat and animal products that end up on European
consumers' dinner tables.
"The question of whether you can use GM products in animal feed is the
next big issue to face Europe," Haerlin predicted.
Indeed, the EU is said to be readying a law that would define the
maximum allowable level of GM content in animal feed.
This could well resemble an EU regulation that came into force in
September 1998 requiring all foods containing detectable GM material to
be clearly labelled as such.
Because the previous European Commission never decided what the term
"detectable" equates to in percentage terms before it resigned last
March, it will be up to the new 19-member Commission due to be confirmed
on Wednesday to define this threshold.
Dominique Taeymans, director of science and regulation for
Brussels-based food and drink producers' group CIAA, said he thought the
Commission should set a maximum allowable level in the next few weeks.