Weighing up free choice for consumers and practical food production

Date: 09/09/04

Polls show that many consumers do not want GMO food and the biotechnology industry knows this, argues MEP Hiltrud Breyer

THE most important issue at stake here is the free choice of consumers and farmers. If 0.3% genetically modified DNA is allowed in our seeds before they must be labelled as containing GMOs, consumers will not be able to decide whether they want to eat such products or not and farmers will be unable to offer non-GMO seeds or plants.

The current labelling threshold for EU-approved GMOs in food on the shelves as well as animal feed is 0.9%, which will be very difficult to respect legally if you already have impure seeds. If you have 5,000 tons of rape seeds this translates into 4.1 million tonnes of harvest and a UK study earlier this year showed that rape seed can be found 26 kilometres from where it was sown. So as well as making it impossible to achieve GMO-free zones, the seed proposal will have an economic impact because it will cost so much more to control.

At the same time, this proposal poses problems of liability. When 0.3% of genetically modified DNA is allowed in seeds, it becomes extremely tricky to say who is responsible for the level of GMO in food. Is it the seed producer? Is it the farmer?

I would fight for a 0.1% GMO threshold before seeds must be labelled. This is the level that is physically possible to measure and it is also a threshold that has been put into practice in Austria already, where they have attracted foreign investment because of their stricter rules.

Behind all this is the biotech industry, attempting to blur the lines. It is trying to get to the stage in a few years' time where it will be impossible to guarantee any kind of GMO-free zone because all areas of farming will have been infiltrated by impurities.

And the reason they are panicking is because there is no added value in GMOs for consumers and they know this. The opinion polls show that 70% of consumers do not want GMO food and all the rules and regulations in the world will not force 70% of the population to buy something they do not want.

As politicians, we have a duty to see that free choice and transparency is protected for the consumer. We have a duty to ensure that sufficient controls can be put in place to avoid GMO pollution which will be practically impossible if a high level of GMO is allowed in seeds. We have to guarantee that consumers can seek alternatives if they do not want to buy GMO. And we have to make sure that liability issues are clear for their protection.

The European Parliament has already fought to force member states to use measurements to detect and therefore avoid pollution. And it has insisted that there should be a register for GMO cultivation, the possibility of recalling a GMO if there are health or ecology concerns and that it should be possible to establish GMO-free zones in sensitive ecological areas. This proposal on GMOs in seeds will jeopardize all of these issues.

Over the next few years I will also push to close a loophole that currently exists and will have a greater impact if this proposal is approved.

At the moment, animal feed must be labelled when it contains more than 0.9% GMO, but products from the animals eating this feed - meat or eggs for example - are exempt from labelling laws. This means that consumers buying these products do not know whether they are eating GMO food or not.

The new Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, has already supported a 0.1% limit being introduced in seeds in her native Denmark. The same limit has been introduced in Austria without problem. I think the new European Commission team should be left to judge the issue.

• German Green MEP Hiltrud Breyer is a member of the European Parliament's committee on environment, public health and food safety.

Consumers will needlessly associate an obligatory 0.3% or 0.1% GMO labelling with health risks that simply do not exist, says MEP Antonios Trakatellis

CURRENT EU law allows GMO levels in food products and animal feed to reach 0.9% before it has to be labelled. If a 0.3% level of GMO is allowed in seeds, this means only three seeds in every 1,000 will be genetically modified. Even if those three seeds produce more plants than the others the end product will still be below the 0.9% threshold.

The problem I see with this argument of whether levels should be set at 0.3% or 0.1% is that the consumer becomes frightened because he associates it with danger to his health. In fact there is no health risk posed by any level of GMOs in food and in any case most Europeans are already exposed to them, for example in products such as tomato purée on supermarket shelves.

There are many misconceptions about GMOs which I think will change gradually as people begin to realize the advantages. We already have the choice between expensive organic tomatoes and regular, cheaper, supermarket tomatoes. Most people buy the cheaper ones. And when there is the added choice of buying tomatoes that will last for four months in the fridge without going rotten, I think people will opt for that.

Certainly, the big biotechnology companies have made the mistake of being very forceful with their new products which damaged their image and consumers need to be protected from that. But I am in favour of discovering properties in new kinds of plants that will give an advantage to society. I believe biotechnology will give us plants that will be good for the environment because they use less pesticides, good for countries with extreme climates because they can resist extreme temperatures and good for countries like Greece with water problems because they can grow without large amounts of water.

And Europe already has the most stringent rules regarding this area of biotechnology. There are no such labelling rules in the US for example, so to start arguing between 0.1% and 0.3% seems a minimal issue.

The real issue here is not playing the numbers game with what level of GMOs to tolerate in seeds. The real issue is consumer choice. We are in a peculiar situation in Europe where we can pick and choose what we eat, whereas in Africa imagine what difference a grain that is resistant to parasites can make to farmers trying to supply hundreds and hundreds of people. But in Europe we can choose and I support consumers' right to choose between GMO products and conventional products if they so wish.

The European Commission, instead of playing the numbers game, should have solid rules about cultivation, so that member states can devise how to keep conventional products and GMO products entirely separate. A product which has come from seeds with 0.3% GMO is no longer either of these things - it is a hybrid. One solution could be to cultivate sterile GMO plants so there is no chance of crossover. Another is to have areas dedicated to one type of plant, for example tomatoes, and then you can grow GMO soya next to it because they are not soya. Member states and farmers should come together and decide which rules can suit them best according to their geography.

In any case, if levels must be determined, this should be done on a solid scientific basis rather than by bargaining between interested parties. We can scientifically measure how much pollution will exist in conventional seeds so we should find out the range of contamination and figure out why some areas are performing better than others in terms of keeping pollution down. Then we will be in a real position to propose a realistic level of GMOs that we are prepared to accept in our seeds.

• Greek Christian Democrat MEP Antonios Trakatellis is a vice-president of the Parliament's committee on environment, public health and food safety.

Two MEPs, German Green Hiltrud Breyer and Greek Christian Democrat Antonios Trakatellis, debate the pros and cons of the European Commission's plans to control GMOs in seeds.

• Primary Source

European Commission: DG Health and Consumer Protection: Overview: Food and feed saftey http://ec.europa.eu/comm/food/food/biotechnology/gmfood/labelling_en.htm

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