Representatives from 132 countries are hoping three times is the charm when it comes to establishing rules governing the trade of genetically modified crops.
Parties to the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety, an international agreement to ensure the safe export of GM products, were scheduled to gather this week in Brazil to resolve some of the treaty’s outstanding issues.
It has been more than two years since the protocol was implemented and despite two follow-up meetings, one in Malaysia in 2004 and the other in Canada in 2005, the parties to the agreement are still wrestling with some key issues.
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The most pressing and contentious issue is what to do about documentation accompanying grain shipments.
Grain exporters contend that millions of dollars in extra costs are at stake.
Under the current rules they are obliged to include a “may contain GMO” clause on grain shipments, a simple and low-cost way of flagging exports of GM crops.
But that is a temporary way to operate. The protocol states a decision on more detailed documentation requirements was to have been in place by Sept. 11, 2005.
Participants came close to meeting that deadline in Montreal last June but at the last minute New Zealand and Brazil, two of the 119 parties to the protocol, vetoed a decision to require stricter documentation rules.
“The industry has grave concerns associated with more detailed documentation requirements,” said Dennis Stephens, consultant with the Canada Grains Council.
More detail leads to more costs associated with identity preservation and testing procedures and could also be used as a non-tariff trade barrier.
Stephens said the increased costs could price countries that grow GM crops out of the market, pointing to a Brazilian study that shows it would add five to nine percent to soybean values in that country.
That is why major grain exporting nations like Canada and the United States have refused to ratify the protocol, choosing instead to lobby their position in the hallways outside the meeting rooms.
Eric Darier, GMO campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, said Canada and the U.S. are using strong-arm tactics to convince those exporters that have ratified the agreement to veto any move toward more detailed documentation.
“You just need one country to express reservation or opposition and then there is no consensus,” Darier said, pointing out how the objections of two countries caused a stalemate in Montreal.
He expects there will be continued efforts to prevent any binding decision on the documentation clause in Brazil.
“We know that the U.S. government has done a lot of lobbying, especially in Asia, trying to push for this ‘may contain’ position,” said Darier.
The downside of those stalling tactics is that importers may get fed up and start adopting their own disjointed regulations that could be all over the map.
“It could make life hell for exporters who might be faced with different regulations throughout the world,” Darier said.
Stephens said uniformly strict regulations would also be a living hell, so he is glad the Canadian delegation to the Brazil meeting has adopted the stance of the International Grain Trade Coalition.
It calls for greater flexibility in documentation requirements, allowing importers to choose whether they require the simple “may contain” designation or something more detailed on shipments of GM crops.
The coalition also suggests the presence of GMOs in non-GM shipments should not trigger any documentation requirements.
But Darier said there needs to be full disclosure on GM and non-GM grain shipments, which he believes will reassure international markets that Canada is transparent and honest.
A similar debate will likely take place when 132 governments gather in Brazil but this time there better be a solution, warns Ahmed Djoghlaf, the executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the organization from which the protocol was spawned.
“It is important that all the pending issues are resolved, including those related to documentation for bulk shipments of commodities containing living modified organisms,” he said.
“This is necessary to put an end to the uncertainty in the international trade of those commodities generated by the lack of consensus.”
