European plan threatens GM food

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- A European Union proposal requiring labeling and tracing of genetically modified foods is part of a protracted feud with the United States that is based on cultural attitudes and European distrust of its own regulatory process, experts said Wednesday.

The EU proposal was adopted by the European Commission this summer and is pending in the European Parliament. It is widely expected to pass and be implemented by 2003.

"The purpose of traceability is to be able to trace back a food product in case something goes wrong," Tony Van Der Haegen, EU minister for agriculture, fisheries and consumer affairs, told an expert panel assembled by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. "Labeling is not science. It is an issue for political judgment and is necessary to ensure transparency so as to restore consumer confidence and allow for consumer choice. Unless we restore EU consumer confidence in this new technology, genetic modification is dead in Europe."

Van Der Haegen, who spoke with other experts at the National Press Club in Washington, said public pressure led European lawmakers to block any new authorizations of GM foods in 1998. Until that time, 18 genetically modified organisms had been approved and 12 are pending, even though European scientists have given those products a green light.

Environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have actively denounced GM foods and many Europeans have taken that message to heart. Also, the EU's regulatory and scientific response to Mad Cow disease is widely seen as a failure.

American farmers are eager for Europe to get over their GM food fight and resume trade of such products. U.S. farmers cultivate 68 percent of all land involved in biotech production around the world, a landmass greater than that of the United Kingdom.

Experts say Euro-American cultural differences are anchored in disparate attitudes about food and land use, as well as attitudes about scientific progress.

"This is not a food divide but a cultural divide," said Julia Moore, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

"Europe is the home of haute cuisine and America is the land of whoppers and fast food," she said. "Europeans tend to care more about quality of food while America is more science-friendly. We've never met a gadget we didn't like."

David Hegwood, advisor to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, said U.S. negotiators want to see Europe's authorization process restarted. Hegwood said the traceability and labeling proposal under consideration is "commercially impractical" and meant to solve a European political problem, namely restoring faith in the continent's regulatory machine, at the expense of the United States.

Specifically, Hegwood said, the EU traceability provision would require U.S. exports of bulk commodities, such as soybeans and corn, to identify any genetically modified varieties contained within huge shipments. This task is "nearly impossible," he said.

He said American farmers, thanks to Europe's balking, have lost more than $200 million a year in corn sales "for a number of years now."

Fred Yoder, president of the National Corn Grows Association, said American farmers could segregate commodities, as per EU requests, but the task would require special and costly equipment such as sealed storage containers on farms.

"We can do what they want, grow conventional or biotech," he said. "But the question is, who is going to pay for it?"

Van Der Haegen said he had seen and was impressed by American farming operations that use genetically modified seeds.

"But it wouldn't help to impose (American systems) on us," he said. "Don't make the mistake of thinking that since this is the way it works in America, it will work that way in Europe. That's what we in Europe call American unilateralism. That's why so often there are anti-American attitudes around the world."

Van Der Haegen said that by taking a stand against environmental groups such as Greenpeace, biotech companies in Europe and America could do more to educate Europeans than the government could.

"It's not up to the European government but the private sector," he said.