New rules to govern genetically modified organisms (GMO) in Asia's US$1 trillion a year food market have begun to threaten exports worth billions of dollars from the US and elsewhere.
The spread of a now-global battle over the use of GMOs to Asia, the biggest market in the world food chain, has been triggered by Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand all deciding to enact laws requiring labelling of transgenic foods.
"The United States is concerned. It was concerned about Australian labelling which recently went through," one insider close to negotiations over the Australian code told Reuters.
With the US alone exporting more than US$15 billion a year worth of unprocessed agricultural products to Asia -- and much more in processed food and beverage products -- blows are already being landed as an Asian round of the global GMO prizefight gets underway.
US authorities and officials have publicly protested recent decisions by Japan and Korea to introduce labelling laws.
The US Administration has also mounted a quiet but effective lobbying campaign to curb labelling decisions by the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA), the insider said.
The Australian and New Zealand governments eventually decided on August 4 to order mandatory labelling of food containing GMOs. But the US effort still paid off, he said.
"It [the code] could have gone a lot further."
With one-third of its corn and half of its soybeans and cotton genetically modified, the US' US$51.7 billion worth of agricultural food exports each year is the biggest potential loser in the global GMO fight.
All on the producer side of the GMO revolution say strict labelling laws and transgenic crop controls may make it so difficult for exporters to comply or penetrate markets that they may tip multi-billion dollar trade balances against GMO foods.
But another scenario is also emerging.
This view sees a more practical, less combative Asia eventually standing in quieter contrast with mayhem in the European GMO battle, where militant purists have destroyed crops and threatened sabotage of "Frankenstein food".
Even Australia's active consumer movement is not storming barricades over GMO foods, although it raises concerns about the right to know and about untested effects of modified food. "The public does not dismiss it out of hand but needs to feel it is truly being consulted," said Carole Renouf, senior policy officer for the Australian Consumer Association.
"I get the feeling that Japan is not as concerned about it [GMO foods] as Europe," one Australian government official told Reuters.
It was quite probable that while Japanese consumers were pushing for labelling laws, the country would not cut its own throat by restricting imports of food products, he said. The eventual answer would be in the implementation of labelling laws.
"I think they will come to some arrangements," he said.
So does Craik. "In about five years time the heat will have gone out of this debate, then countries like Japan will just gradually start to take it [GM food]," she said.
US chemical giant Monsanto Co, one of the main producers of genetically modified crops, has a similar view. "We're pretty optimistic that given good labelling and good consumer knowledge this whole thing will settle down pretty well," said Monsanto Australia spokesman.
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