Reuters | October 19, 1999
HAMBURG - German institutions on Tuesday welcomed as constructive a decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review its biotech food policy.
"I think the U.S. feel they need to respond to the legal and scientific discussions held in Europe as it is one of their major food export markets," said Christiane Toussaint, an adviser at German food industry institute BLL in Bonn.
The FDA said on Monday it would start holding public hearings on the safety of food from genetically modified (GM) crops, with labelling likely to be among the main topics.
The move probably had less to do with consumer pressure inside the U.S. than with worries over loss of European markets due to Latin American competition, Toussaint added.
Latin American producers might consider offering GM-free crops from segregated fields to Europe.
The provision of labelling and consumer information on the origin of foods derived from GM-crops had been largely voluntary in the U.S. where there did not appear to be much legal or consumer pressure for it to be made mandatory, she said.
An agriculture ministry spokeswoman in Bonn said genetic engineering was still a relatively new science and it was only fair that U.S. consumers would be given more information on GM foods on which to base their buying decisions.
"You cannot offer such choices without labelling," she said.
She added readiness by the U.S. to agree on international labelling requirements would take the sting out of looming disputes among global food trade partners.
Latest farm ministry statistics showed the U.S. was Germany's most important third country supplier of food in the first half of 1999.
It accounted for 1.39 billion marks worth of shipments within Germany's food import total from countries outside the European Union of 12.0 billion marks in the six months.
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