A veteran Canadian grain industry official says an international agreement to accept imports with low-level presence of genetically modified material is essential to avoid trade chaos in the future.
A “tsunami” of new GM traits will be approved within years and could create shipping chaos if importing countries maintain a zero-tolerance policy for GM, Dennis Stephens, long affiliated with the Canada Grains Council and now secretary of the International Grain Trade Coalition, told an Ottawa grain symposium last week.
The issue is becoming urgent and already costs grain exporters millions of dollars, he said.
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It will only get worse.
“We don’t have a global estimate of the cost impact right now but we know it is happening regularly where shipments are turned back and costs are continuing to escalate,” he said after a speech to a grain symposium sponsored by the CGC and Grain Growers of Canada.
“What is scaring us is the sheer projections of numbers of new events (GM traits) that are going to be commercialized over the next five years.”
He said it is estimated in the hundreds. “This really does have the potential to shut down trade,” he said.
The IGTC is an international industry group pressing for agreement on allowing up to five percent inadvertent GM content, as long as it has been approved as safe under scientific rules by the exporting country.
“The most important fact governments must understand is that rules must reflect varying levels of risk,” he said. “They also must understand that there is a cost in the price of food for their populations because of these restrictions.”
Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said Canada is leading the charge for international talks to win approval of scientifically based rules on low level presence.
He said 15 countries are part of a coalition that is pressing for a spring meeting on the topic organized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
“We want to make sure people are thinking about it and we’re getting a critical mass,” he said after a speech to the grain symposium. “We now have 15 countries on board saying there has to be change and that is good news.”
Even the European Union, long the bastion of GM food resistance, is beginning to move slightly, said Ritz. “There is some movement on feed now, but not on food but it is a start.”
The minister said he believes an international deal eventually will be forged.
“I’m optimistic that the world is coming to the realization that if you are going to have food security and sustainability, you are going to have to look at biotechnology and that means a good low-level policy,” he told reporters.
Stephens said a low level presence policy “is an adjunct to a full approval process for GMOs around the world.”
Ironically, while Canada is leading an international campaign to establish low-level-presence standards for inadvertent small amounts of GM material in imports, its does not have its own tolerance levels and zero remains the standard.
The government is holding consultations on what level of tolerance should be written into regulations.
