Reuters | November 20, 1999 | By Matthew Green
PARIS - U.S. and European Union farmers Saturday urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) to adopt clear rules on global trade in genetically modified foods.
Speaking at a Paris debate, farmers' representatives said a reluctance among EU governments to allow imports of gene-modified food from the United States could stymie WTO talks this month in Seattle.
"We see biotechnology coming up as a potential trade barrier," said David King, secretary general of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, an umbrella group for farmers' unions around the world.
"It's a political agenda, not a scientific agenda," King told Reuters, adding that consumer fears over genetically modified organizms (GMOs) had forced European governments to act cautiously when authorizing imports.
Concern over GMOs is growing in Europe, where some countries have barred maize and soya shipments from across the Atlantic because U.S. authorities cannot guarantee they only contain EU-approved varieties.
The U.S. says this has cost it some $200 million in maize sales alone over the past two years, and will push for the WTO, which governs world trade, to set clear rules on GMO approval.
U.S. farmers said the EU's reluctance to approve their crop strains amounted to a trade barrier, albeit one that did not use the traditional means of slapping tariffs on imports.
"It's absolutely a non-tariff barrier," said Alex Jackson of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents more than 4.6 million farms.
Speaking on the fringes of a conference organized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, he said that environmental groups often mislead consumers over GMOs.
A Greenpeace International representative said GMOs could have unpredictable effects on health and nature and added that the WTO was not equipped to settle environmental issues.
"This is an environmental issue, not a trade issue," said Greenpeace genetic engineering coordinator Benedikt Haerlin.
The Seattle meeting runs from November 30 to December 3.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
