Europe could soften its rigid zero tolerance stance on GM crop contamination as early as this fall, says a Canadian grain trade expert.
Dennis Stephens, consultant with the Canada Grains Council, told delegates attending the Canadian Special Crops Association’s 2010 convention in Saskatoon that Europe is working on a “technical solution” that would greatly reduce the potential for trade disruptions.
Instead of zero being defined as 0.01 percent of an unauthorized GM trait, it would likely be 0.1 to 0.3 percent.
That would be a more palatable policy for North American grain exporters, who have had shipments rejected for containing unapproved GM traits in the grain dust.
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“It would have a very significant impact. It would largely remove the potential of dust particles triggering a trait (related) stoppage,” said Stephens.
DG Sanco, Europe’s directorate general for health and consumer affairs, is developing the proposed changes.
Stephens believes it includes a provision for a more manageable tolerance level.
The changes are scheduled to be presented to EU member states in September. They would have to be approved by a technical committee comprising the European Commission and its member states before implementation.
The changes would not require legislation and would likely be a European-wide policy, said Stephens.
In an April 2010 newsletter, the European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation called for the “urgent adoption” of the proposed new policy.
“The objective of the whole EU food and feed chain is to seek formal adoption of this technical solution before the next harvest in October/ November 2010 in order to avoid new crisis situations on the feed and food markets and further economical damage of EU livestock farmers and feed and food business operations,” said the federation.
Stephens doubts that the technical solution will help the flax industry rid itself of the CDC Triffid contamination dilemma, but it will provide technology providers with the assurance that trace amounts of recently developed and future traits won’t wreak havoc on grain trade with Europe.
“This will be very important in terms of the future but it won’t necessarily solve all the problems that we’ve inherited in the past,” he said.
