The European Union has just approved three genetically modified maize varieties for importation and processing, but not cultivation.
As I have previously discussed, the EU has a policy of ‘zero tolerance’ of unapproved GM feed. The EU feed industry organisation FEFAC estimates that over 180,000 tonnes of US soya has been denied entry to the EU since June 2009 on the grounds that it contained traces of non-approved maize varieties.
The EU relies on imported soya for up to 80 per cent of the protein feed for its intensive livestock industries. Now that the maize has been approved, shipments of soya can resume.
A combined industry/farm lobby group is pressing EU authorities for a long term resolution to the asynchronous approval issue, where GM varieties approved in North and South America are blocked for import into the EU. Its latest letter warns of a “looming crisis in the EU food and livestock feed chain that could cost the industry between €3.5 billion and €5 billion.”
The lack of alternative protein feed ingredients leaves Europe’s livestock producers and their feed suppliers, plus the food processing sectors in an “extremely precarious position” the letter says, with implications for the EU agricultural sector’s global competitiveness.
It says, “The threat of lay-offs in the trade and processing industries; of already vulnerable livestock farmers going out of business and of consumers being hit through knock-on effects on choice, availability and price, all still remain.”
The latest approvals are unlikely to quickly raise the importers’ confidence in the EU as a market. A fourth maize variety, widely grown in the US, is not yet approved and the EU’s own Joint Research Council warns there are as many as 120 potential GM varieties being developed by biotechnology companies, many of which could reach the market by 2015.
These include ‘second generation’ crops such as drought tolerant and nitrogen efficient varieties of soybeans and corn, under development by Monsanto. But it also includes a growing number of crops from national technology providers in Asia and Latin America, designed for domestic markets. There is significant potential for import restrictions to be applied in response to low-level presence of these in imports of crops or processed foods.
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