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Modified food spat likely to continue

Transatlantic differences over the safety of genetically modified foods will drag on for years more and may widen and get worse, European Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said yesterday.

Disagreements over potential risks to human health and the environment from genetically modified crops such as maize and soy, versus the benefits and economic potential promised by their creators, has already sparked a US suit against the EU at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

While EU countries are inching towards lifting a five-year unofficial ban on authorizing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for use, the acid test of approvals for commercial plantings is unlikely any time soon.

"I think we will have a basic difference in views on GMOs for a very long time," Wallstrom said in an interview, referring to Europe and the US.

The debate would also spill over into other countries, she added.

"We will see it in China, we will see it in Brazil, it will not become any easier. It will be a more heated debate," she said, speaking on the margins of a UN meeting on slowing the rate of global species loss.

Negotiators will meet on Monday for their third week of talks under the Convention on Biological Diversity, focusing from then on the UN Cartagena Protocol and its implications for trans-boundary trade in GMOs.

Protocol signatory countries now number more than 80, but exclude all the major GMO growers, including the US.

The law, whose specifics remain to be negotiated in detail, will oblige exporters to give more information about genetically modified products like maize and soybeans before any shipment to recipient countries, to help them decide whether to accept it.

Questions of liability for any problem shipments, redress and labelling still need to be sorted out.

Wallstrom said biotech companies must shoulder blame for the way things had turned out in the international debate on GMOs and called on the industry to be more transparent about its activities.

"They have a responsibility to create some sort of ethical rules on how they are going to use this technology. Until they do this, things will be increasingly difficult," she said.

GMO company Monsanto Co said on Wednesday it remained optimistic the EU would lower its barriers to genetically modified crops.
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