At last the political pressure seems to be building to do away with the EU's ridiculous rules that outlaw any feedstuffs that contains even a trace of a non-approved GM product.
Just two weeks ago, a cargo of US soymeal was turned away by importers in Spain, following the discovery of traces of an unapproved GM maize variety. And further consignments had to be recalled in Germany.
The EU's highly convoluted approvals process means that the waiting list of GM products is increasing all the time. And is it grows, so does the risk of contamination with non-EU approved soya or maize.
This week's report from DEFRA and the Food Standards Agency sums up the problem well. It points to the fact that Brazil and Argentina currently supply 90% of the UK's soya market, and these two countries are dominated by GM varieties - over 90% in the case of Argentina....
Currently they only cultivate varieties that are approved for use in the EU. But patience is wearing thin and Argentina could soon start approving non-EU approved varieties too.
According to the DEFRA study, under a worst case scenario, where there were no soya imports from either Argentina or Brazil, there would be a 300% major increase in feed costs, a "significant" reduction in pig and poultry production and a marked increase (10-20%) in meat prices.
While these are, by admission, extreme figures, they highlight the problem. Even without contamination, sourcing GM-free soya can cost anything between $5/t and $80/t more than a GM alternative.
Fortunately, there seems to be some momentum building in Brussels to change these rules. EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel recently said she was "deeply concerned" about the threat to the EU livestock sector of not being able to source competitive feed. It was almost impossible to avoid some form of GM contamination, as the crops are now so widely grown, she added.
And, while proposals to deal with the issue have been held up in the EU's food safety directorate for many months, the expectation is that they will now see the light of day when Brussels goes back to work in September. It is rumoured they may even go to the EU agriculture council on 7 September.
As with anything to do with GM crops, they are likely to split opinion between member states.
But, from a purely practical point of view, steps must be taken urgently to allow at least a degree of "adventitious presence" of non-approved GMs, without the cost and waste of banning such harmless consignments from the EU food chain.
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Looks like we going to have to learn to eat less meat. That will be good in many many ways. I say this is one who used to be a livestock farmer that understands the complexities of feeding a burgeoning population, and the ridiculousness of feeding 10 kg of grains to create 1 kg of beef. Never mind that every quarter pounder sold in a burger chain requires 475 L of water through its lifetime to produce it. Yet another resource which we haven't got enough of.
Furthermore, I've yet to see any significant information, will yield results to show that GM varieties are better than conventional ones. If there is an advantage is because the conventional breeding has fallen so far behind, while all the millions and billions have been funding GM research.
Amazing how we can be distorted in our priorities by the appeal of something that resembles a mirage, and leads us down all the wrong roads.
Sounds like a hoax to me.
I would be interested to know from Philip exactly which "non EU-approved varieties" Argentina is considering approving?
Hi Branston Fen,
I feel it could be more than a hoax (Argentina threatening to start commercialising non-EU approved GM varieties). According to Appendix 4 of the DEFRA/FSA report, Agentina currently has 12 GM varieties of soybean, maize and cotton in commercial production, and all are authorised for use in the EU. But there are another 11 described as "in the pipeline" of which just two are currently EU authorised. That proves nothing as, clealry, Argentina has had a policy of only approving varieites as and when they are acceptable to their main market in the EU.
What convinces me this is more than a hoax, however, is a conversation I had with a senior Argentine official at the International Grains Council conference in London in June. He told me that the government had worked out the cost to farmers of not being allowed to grow more GM crops and it no longer made sense to deny them this opportunity. He said his government would be approving a non-EU approved GM maize variety by the end of this year. Time will tell if he was telling the truth, but the threat is undeniably there.