Canadian grain producers dodged a bullet last week when delegates to the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety couldn’t reach consensus on stricter rules governing the movement of GMOs, says an agriculture consultant.
Two of the 119 member governments attending a five-day meeting in Montreal blocked an attempt to require detailed documentation on bulk shipments of genetically modified canola, corn, soybean and other agricultural commodities.
If they hadn’t, it could have meant increased documentation requirements, higher segregation costs and lost markets for Canadian growers, said Dennis Stephens, a Canada Grains Council consultant who represented grain industry interests at the Montreal meeting.
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But the thorny issue will undoubtedly resurface when delegates reconvene in Curitiba, Brazil, next March.
“The result of this meeting is good news but I would suggest we have bought nine months,” said Stephens.
Canada has signed the protocol but has no voting privileges at the meetings because, like most other major exporting nations, it hasn’t ratified the agreement.
Brazil and New Zealand, two grain exporting countries that do have a vote, used it to block a proposal requiring grain shippers to provide a detailed list of what GMOs may be contained in a shipment along with specific scientific information and the unique identifiers attached to those events.
Doreen Stabinsky, a campaigner for Greenpeace International on genetic modification, said blocking an otherwise consensus decision proved to be unpopular.
“It was quite interesting when Ethiopia basically challenged Brazil for betraying the developing world,” she said.
Representatives from many other countries also expressed deep disappointment by the failure to develop a set of mutually acceptable rules in time to meet a self-imposed Sept. 11, 2005 deadline.
The primary intent of the Montreal meeting was to move participants beyond a trade atmosphere where all exporters have to do is attach a “may contain GMOs” disclaimer to their grain shipments.
Stephens said the failure to accomplish that task provides delegates with a much-needed breather because biosafety policy is developing faster than it can be implemented.
“From an industry point of view, a no decision is much superior to a decision that is going to cause you severe grief,” he said.
If exporters were forced to list all the possible sources of GM contamination, it would scare off potential buyers.
A recent study by the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council determined that testing costs associated with the new protocol would also add millions of dollars in costs.
And many importers have yet to fulfil a separate requirement of the protocol by determining what are acceptable and unacceptable GMOs.
Stabinsky said despite the failure to reach consensus in Montreal, she expects many importers to start adopting more stringent GM regulations on a country-by-country basis.
Before the conference came to a close a delegate from Ethiopia, speaking on behalf of the African contingent, issued a passionate plea for developing countries to pass such legislation on their own.
“My guess is that (exporters) will find it harder and harder to ship GE organisms without that information,” said Stabinsky.
Stephens said individual national regulations would be preferable to a hastily slapped together international agreement affecting 119 countries.
“They will find there will be as many increased costs and challenges on the import side as there is on the export side.”
