Tag: GMO

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Another day, another declaration

Hot on the heels of the joint declaration by Birdlife International and the European Landowners Association and the declaration of 23 European agricultural economists comes the European Food Declaration (PDF).

The European Food Declaration diagnoses the problems of Europe’s food and farming system in the following way:

– dependence on under-priced fossil fuels
– failure to recognise the limitations of water and land resources
– promotion of unhealthy diets high in calories, fat and salt, and low in fruit, vegetables and
grains
– domination by transnational corporations and the World Trade Organisation (WTO)

The declaration argues that:

“All people should have access to healthy, safe, and nutritious food. The ways in which we grow, distribute, prepare and eat food should celebrate Europe’s cultural diversity, providing sustenance equitably and sustainably.”

The declaration sets out 12 principles, among them Principle 3 makes the curiously contradictory case for healthier eating and less consumption of meat and dairy products “while
respecting the regional cultural dietary habits and traditions”. So cassoulet, bratwurst and zampone are all safe. Principle 4 calls for an agriculture “that involves numerous farmers”, presumably a call for more support to keep smaller farms in business, or to cut support for larger farms. Principle 4 also calls for “fair and secure farm prices”, i.e. a return to production controls and price-setting of the CAP of the 1970s and 1980s. Principle 7 argues that Europe should be GMO-free and Principle 8 says biofuels should be discouraged and transport minimised. Most of the other principles are of the ‘motherhood and apple pie’ variety – very sound but lacking real substance on how they’ll be achieved.

The declaration is the work of a platform of NGOs includingVia Campesina (International Peasant Movement), whose colourful José Bové is a former French presidential candidate and currently vice-chairman of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee, Friends of the Earth and Attac Austria. The organisers will open the declaration to public signatories later this month.

You can read the declaration in full below:

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Changes in GM feedstuffs rules on the way?

There now seems to be momentum building up to change EU rules on GM feedstuffs in order to assist the future of the pig and poultry industries in Europe, with the Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel waxing eloquent on this issue on her blog last week after she raised the issue at the monthly Agricultural Council. According to a Reuters report, the Commissioner has indicated that a proposal on a maximum level for GMO residues in imports should be ready before the end of the year.

The problem arises for two reasons. The first is that the EU has tended to lag behind other countries in the approval of new GM varieties for use in animal feedstuffs. The EU is hugely dependent on the import of feeds, particularly soya, and as the main soya exporters, the US, Brazil and Argentina, increasingly turn to GM varieties, it is becoming increasingly difficult to source non-GM feedstuffs. This is adding to the cost of feed supplies for EU pig and poultry producers. The Commissioner is calling for a more rapid political response once the EFSA safety assessment has been made.

The second issue is that, as long as a GM variety is unapproved, no amount of this unapproved variety is allowed to enter the EU. This has resulted in a number of shipments of soybeans from the US being refused permission to offload because of the presence of minute amounts of a non-approved GM maize variety in the shipments – presumably from a previous load that the ship carried. Such uncertainty could, in the limit, mean that US exporters cease soya shipments to the EU. The obvious solution would be to raise the threshold for adventitious contamination from the current zero level to a minute level, say 0.1%, where the health risks would still be negligible.

In the absence of a solution to this problem, Europe risks losing a large part of its pig and poultry industries, to be replaced by imports of pigmeat and poultrymeat from third countries – fed on the very GM varieties that the EU has refused to authorise even when the EFSA has given the thumbs up. However, the Reuters report concludes that, given the disagreements among Member States on this issue, a solution will not be found until the new Commission takes office next year.

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Prospects for GMO products in the EU

After the forceful and successful management of the agricultural dossier by the French Presidency in the second half of 2008, it was inevitable that the agenda for the Czech Presidency would be a light one, and this is also reflected in the activity level for this blog since the beginning of this year.

Nonetheless, even in a context where most attention is focused on dealing with the financial crisis and the strengthening recession hitting Europe, Europe’s agricultural and food industries continue to be required to address regulatory issues affecting the governance of the sector. One of these issues concerns the regulatory environment for genetically modified products (GMPs), and I am indebted to EurActiv for drawing my attention to the outcome of a meeting of the Environmental Council in early December which gave a series of political directions to the Commission on this issue.
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