Food industry dreads European labeling rules

[Guest guest]

Food industry dreads European labeling rules

By Bill Lambrecht

 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Sunday, Apr. 18 2004

 

They ease biotech exports but impose strict record keeping

 

WASHINGTON - The food industry is bracing for new European labeling and

tracking rules that could knock down export barriers to genetically modified

food but at the cost of changes in food-production and farming.

 

Fear of the new rules - which take effect Sunday - is so widespread that

leading American farm and food groups are pressing the government to

challenge their validity in the World Trade Organization.

 

The stakes are especially high in St. Louis, headquarters of the American

Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association and Monsanto Co.,

the world leader in plant biotechnology.

 

The European rules represent a stark divergence from practices in the United

States, where the government and industry have fought to prevent labeling

genetically modified products along with requirements to track their

shipment.

 

But in return for abiding by their rules, the Europeans are promising to

lift a moratorium on approvals of many new, American-bred biotech products

that were banned six years ago.

 

That would be hugely welcome news for Monsanto and its rivals in the

biotechnology industry were it not for concern about the looming rules for

labeling.

 

They require European retailers to inform consumers if even a tiny portion

(0.9 percent) of their food has ingredients that come from genetically

modified plants. Even sacks of engineered grain fed to animals in Europe

must bear labels.

 

In order to avoid the stigma of labels, food companies could choose to

reformulate products to assure that they contain no genetically engineered

ingredients whatsoever.

 

That would be especially troublesome to the soybean farmers in the United

States, where the crop is now more than 80 percent genetically modified.

Soybeans are used in a wide variety of processed foods but companies might

substitute palm oil or the equivalent for soybean oil.

 

American soybean farmers already have lost one-quarter of their European

market - valued at more than $200 million - in two years in part because of

the furor over biotechnology.

 

David Hegwood, trade adviser in the U.S. Agriculture Department, said he

worries that some food companies may simply choose to relocate in Europe to

avoid burdensome export rules.

 

"We think this is a lousy way to accomplish what they are trying to

accomplish," he said.

 

Farmer obligations

 

The loss of markets is just one of the worries.

 

Accompanying the labeling rules are new documentation requirements for

genetically modified products that will require record keeping from farms to

grocery shelves.

 

American farmers hoping to export engineered corn will need to keep track

for five years of which seeds were planted in what field. Similar records

will need to be maintained at grain elevators and by rail, trucking and

barge lines as grain makes its way across the ocean.

 

The prospect of all that paperwork is daunting, said Hayden Milberg, the

director of public policy for the National Corn Growers Association in

Washington.

 

"The U.S. grain-handling system is just not set up for this level of

traceability. Such a system would be extremely expensive," he said.

 

The issue takes on even bigger significance because much of the world looks

to Europe for leadership in matters of food safety.

 

Since Europe's initial labeling regime was imposed five years ago, some

three dozen countries representing 20 of the top 25 American export markets

have adopted a labeling system, according to industry calculations.

 

In other words, rules written for the 15-country European Union - soon to

grow to 25 countries - could have an impact far beyond the European

continent.

 

"These rules are important for the entire global economy," said Karil

Kochenderfer, director of international trade for the Grocery Manufacturers

of America, the world's largest food association.

 

"These products are safe by every scientific measurement, but they are being

treated like hazardous waste. If we don't have the objectivity of science,

what do we rely on?" she asked.

 

Tony Van der Haegen, a European Union official in Washington, argued that

the traceability requirements are becoming common throughout the world as a

means to prevent bioterrorism and attacks on computer systems.

 

He asserted that the United States ought to understand that there are views

about food in the world other than those held by Americans.

 

"The problem of the United States is that it works under the motto that what

is good for Americans is good for the world. That is wrong, and that is why

the U.S. is losing big chunks of its export markets," he said.

 

European barriers

 

It didn't take long after the first shipments of Monsanto's Roundup Ready

soybeans arrived in Europe in 1996 for a backlash to begin.

 

Europeans long have paid more attention than Americans have to food, its

sources and its presentation. In the 1990s, the continent had been shaken by

a serious epidemic of mad cow disease, which produced spongelike holes in

the brain of animals and began afflicting humans.

 

Despite a loss of faith in the continent's regulatory apparatus, Monsanto

did little to prepare the European public for newly constituted food,

leading to the 1998 de facto embargo that remains in effect today.

 

Europe's new labeling rules were devised as a strategy to give consumers a

choice and to tamp down concerns about the safety of genetically modified

food and its impact on the environment. Greenpeace activists are planning to

fan out to European supermarkets to warn people about products carrying the

new labels.

 

Despite opposition, Van der Haegen predicted that by early June, Europe will

approve two biotech corn products - one a Monsanto variety - which he

interpreted as lifting the moratorium that has plagued the industry and cost

American corn farmers more than $1 billion in lost exports.

 

Tom McDermott, Monsanto's spokesman in Brussels, said he is hopeful that the

Europeans will live up to their promise to end the moratorium that is

blocking the approval of about a dozen Monsanto products both for import and

planting.

 

But McDermott said that Monsanto, like many others, is wary of the new

labeling rules.

 

"Besides requiring a lot of record keeping and extra work by the people who

handle these products, it will be very difficult to enforce and open the

door to confusion, possibly even to consumer fraud. People might not

represent truthfully what they have," he said.

 

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in Washington

and the author of a newly released book on the World Trade Organization,

sounded amused by the fretting.

 

"The industry has its knickers in a colossal knot about the most basic of

market freedoms - the consumer's right to know. It strikes me that there's

more going on here than worry about the cost of regulation. It has to do

with the fear of what consumers will do if fully informed," she said.

 

Signs of change

 

In November, 22 organizations representing much of the American food and

farm industry requested that the U.S. trade representative begin formal

proceedings in the World Trade Organization against the new rule, similar to

the challenge to the European Union moratorium last year.

 

If the World Trade Organization found that the new rules unfairly restrained

trade, Europe could be harshly penalized.

 

As of last week, the U.S. trade office had made no decision on challenging

the rules, and officials there did not respond to requests for comment.

Government officials have expressed fears in recent months of what they call

a growing "Europe-ization" of world attitudes against genetically modified

food.

 

But a U.S. official who monitors biotech issues said last week he believes

that the anti-biotech sentiments that gave rise to the new rules are

increasingly being questioned in developing countries.

 

Peter Chase, a State Department official who returned recently from a U.N.

global biotechnology forum in Chile, said he detected rising resentment

toward European-induced obstacles to agriculture biotechnology.

 

"Many people feel that the pendulum has swung too far and that some of the

questions that the Europeans keep asking aren't relevant to them," he said.

 

***************************************************************

 

EU starts enforcing strictest rules on GM food labeling

Few products to reach the market as companies keep in mind consumers’

choices.

 

Food Ingredients First

19/04/2004

 

Countries in Europe have started enforcing the world's strictest rules on

labeling genetically modified foods. However, few such products are expected

to come to market as consumers continue to avoid these as "frankenfood."

 

Europe's biggest retailer, Paris-based Carrefour Group, said its own

research shows more than 75 percent of European consumers do not want

genetically modified foods.

 

Its own-brand products have been guaranteed biotech-free since 1999 and

other companies are "doing whatever's necessary to make sure their products

don't need to be labeled," a Carrefour spokeswoman said.

 

At the Di per Di supermarket in central Rome, manager Mario Greghi said it

would be "useless" to stock such items because they wouldn't sell.

 

Major supermarket chains in Sweden require suppliers to provide

documentation that products don't include genetically modified ingredients,

and big companies generally comply.

 

Foods with biotech ingredients already had labeling requirements in the EU.

 

But the new rules are tougher because they will include ingredients like

vegetable oils and other highly-refined products, such as soy lecithin,

where the genetically modified DNA or resulting protein is no longer present

or detectable in the final product.

 

The new threshold level is set at 0.9 percent, down from the current 1

percent.

 

Traceability rules adopted simultaneously require a paper trail "from the

farm to the fork" to deter cheating.

 

In preparation for the law coming into force, "a lot of food companies have

reformulated or found other supply chains" to avoid using the labels, said

Dominique Taeymans, director of scientific and regulatory affairs at the

European food and drink industry lobby, CIAA.

 

Food already on the shelves before today can still be sold without being

relabeled.

 

Supporters of the biotech industry, which had fought for less stringent

rules, expressed hope Friday that the implementation would clear the way --

as promised -- for the lifting of the EU`s 6-year-old moratorium on

approving new genetically engineered products.

 

But opponents pledged to keep up their campaign and were already pushing for

even tougher rules to require labels on any meat or dairy products from

animals that ate genetically modified feed.

 

The feed itself will have to be labeled under the new rules, but the EU

decided not to label meat or dairy because there was no scientific proof

that the altered material made it from the animal's stomach to the end

product.

 

Farm groups in the US -- the world's leading producer of genetically

engineered crops -- have opposed labeling, arguing it is unnecessary because

their products have been proven safe.

 

In the US, about 80 percent of the soy crop, half of the canola crop and 40

percent of the corn crop comes from genetically engineered seeds. As the

acreage has grown, Europe's markets have closed.