Canada’s agricultural exports face increased disruption because of strict rules in many countries to reject imports that contain even trace elements of unauthorized genetically modified material, says a trade expert.
Dennis Stephens of the Canada Grains Council said the current widespread policy of zero tolerance for unapproved GMO presence is impossible to meet as GM crops spread around the world.
“Zero threshold policies for products produced through modern biotechnology authorized in one or more countries but not in the country of import represent one of the most significant trade disruption policies in existence today,” he told a joint meeting of the CGC and Grain Growers of Canada in Ottawa Nov. 17.
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Stephens, secretary of the International Grain Trade Coalition that lobbies for adoption of policies that allow low level presence of GMO material, said the past year’s market chaos for Canadian flax growers because of the unauthorized presence of Triffid, an unregistered GMO variety, is a harbinger of things to come.
“That’s what’s scary in the international grain trade context,” he said. “There will be more train wrecks.”
Stephens said the major problem is that GMO detection technology has advanced faster than governments’ political decisions on how to manage trade.
“With a .01 percent threshold, you are basically down to detecting minute amounts in dust and grain shippers can’t control dust.”
During a recent parliamentary debate on private member’s Bill C-474 that would require a market impact analysis before any new GMO variety is approved for sale, supporters of the bill made essentially the same argument. Once a new GMO variety is approved, it will inevitably become an issue for exporters trying to ship to markets that reject genetically modified food.
Their answer was to make the GMO approval process take account of the potential for export market harm.
Stephens took a different position, arguing that efforts to restrict biotechnology are not practical or desirable.
He said the answer is to create workable import policies that recognize trace amounts of unauthorized GMO material that has been approved for use in other countries are not a health or safety problem.
“I’m a strong supporter of the technology but unfortunately, governments are not moving fast enough to develop the ability to manage the presence of the technology in trade,” he said.
Canada and other members of the IGTC have been promoting policies that increase the threshold of unauthorized GMO presence but Stephens said the Philippines is the only country to set a more realistic level at four percent.
The European Union has proposed to its members a new GMO threshold of 0.1 percent, 10 times higher than the current .01 percent. If approved, it would apply only to GMO varieties approved for use in other countries but not the EU.
It would not affect rejection of flax containing traces of Triffid since that variety is not approved for use in any country.
However, the new higher threshold would apply only for imports destined for the feed market while food imports would continue to have essentially a zero-tolerance policy.
