The Europeans haven’t removed obstacles that prevent the movement of
Canadian canola into their market.
But they have shown where they intend to place the bear traps, which
the canola industry says is an improvement.
“This is clearly not as good as free and clear and no
labelling, but it doesn’t prohibit sales once the other regulations
are done,” said Barb Isman, president of the Canola Council of Canada.
Last week, the European Parliament approved draft regulations that
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would allow newly approved genetically modified foods to be sold in
European Union countries. But these food products would have to be
labelled, and foods claiming to be non-GM will have an extremely low
level of allowable GM contamination.
GM livestock feed will have to be labelled, as will processed GM
products, such as vegetable oils that have no trace of the GM genes
that were in the plants that produced them. But meat from animals fed
GM feeds will not have to be labelled.
Right now, no Canadian canola is sold to the EU because it bans the
sale of GM products that have not been approved by EU authorities. The
EU has had a moratorium on GM approvals since the mid-1990s.
The EU approved some soybean genetic modifications before the
moratorium was imposed, but no GM canola made it through the regulatory
process in time.
The European Parliament has now opened the door to future approvals and
sales, said Isman.
“What we have now is a set of labels that would come into force once we
clear a whole series of regulatory hurdles.”
Genetically modified canola varieties can now be put forward for
regulatory approval. If they get that approval, they can be sold as
long as they follow new labelling rules.
The situation is more complicated for non-GM canola, which will now
have to achieve a non-GM purity that most in the industry believe is
next to impossible to guarantee.
Non-GM canola can contain only 0.5 percent canola containing an
approved GM trait, and zero percent of seed with unapproved GM content.
The GM canola also cannot contain any trace of genes that have not been
approved by the EU.
These new rules, which modify previous ones proposed by the European
Commission, will now be sent to the EU Council for approval.
Isman said she is glad the EU is finally clarifying its rules and
showing a way forward, even if it is filled with obstacles.
But Eric Darier of Greenpeace, an environmental organization that
opposes GM foods, saw the European Parliament’s actions differently.
Instead of seeing these rules as a road map allowing GM foods to
proceed, he saw them as a door slowly shutting out GM foods.
“The writing is on the wall,” said Darier, who works in Greenpeace’s
Montreal office.
The new rules, if approved, will make it so difficult to market and
sell GM foods that most exporters will not bother to try. That will
encourage farmers to return to non-GM crops, Darier said.
Europe may be the first to erect such barriers, but it won’t be the
last, he predicted. If more markets indicate they are hostile to GM
foods, Canadian farmers should pressure the federal government to turn
back the clock on GM approvals, he said.
“It may be time for producers and the Canadian government and
Agriculture Canada to reconsider their positions,” said Darier.
But Isman said the European situation is a specific problem and does
not represent world opinion.
“This isn’t about food safety. It’s about politics and trade barriers,”
said Isman.
