GM crop ban threatens Europe’s livestock farmers

GM soya: a threat to Europe’s livestock farming?

The EU has published its first ever study of the economic impact of banning genetically modified crops on feed imports and livestock production, showing producers may struggle to feed their animals.

As the livestock industry is responsible for 40 per cent of European farm income such a reduction in the livestock industry would result in a significant job losses, while meat prices for consumers would increase significantly.

Ironically, in the longer term this would have exactly the opposite effect from that which anti-GM campaigners hoped for, increasing imports of meat products from animals fed with GMOs not yet approved in the EU.

Pressure on the EU is mounting as the speed of adoption of genetically modified crops increases around the world. In 2006, 10.3 million farmers in 22 countries cultivated genetically modified crops on 102 million hectares. Currently, the adoption rate is seeing double-digit annual growth.

Ninety percent of farmers who benefited from biotech crops in 2006 were resource poor farmers from developing countries. Most of the crops are commodities that are traded internationally throughout the world.

The report, Economic Impact of Unapproved GMOs on EU feed imports and livestock production, notes that the EU takes a minimum of 2.5 years and often much longer to complete new biotech trait authorisations, compared with an average of 15 months in the US.

If the situation is not improved imports of essential GM derived feed and food products
may slow down considerably, or come to a halt, as traders would be unwilling to assume
the risk of having traces of biotech crops that are not authorised in the EU detected in their shipments.

This situation is projected to worsen as new biotech traits in maize and other key crops
such as soybeans and oil seed rape are approved in other parts of the world.

The economic impact will be most immediately apparent in feed supplies. “In the middle term, the ability of the EU livestock producers to feed their animals and hence the welfare of these animals is at stake, and would result in a dramatic reduction of the livestock population in the EU,” says the report.

There is no indication that Brazil or Argentina, Europe's two biggest suppliers of livestock feed, would be willing to cater to the European market by resisting the planting of GMO crops that have been approved in their countries but not yet approved in the EU.

GM must be purer than organic

As 100 per cent purity in crops grown in the open farming environment is not possible, tolerances exist to cover a certain percentage of foreign material which may be present in low levels in virtually all crops. For example, non-organic seed and crops are adventitiously present in organic seed and crops.

But in the case of genetically modified organisms that are not approved in Europe, the EU has a zero tolerance policy. This means that if even trace levels of unapproved GM materials are found in imported commodities, the full shipment has to be rejected and none of it can be marketed in the EU, resulting in a complete interruption of such imports.

The report calls for realistic tolerance levels to be adopted for the low level presence of GM materials that have not been approved by the EU in imported commodities. These tolerances would be similar to those for foreign materials.

What would be the impact banning imports?

The worst case scenario, as modelled by the report’s authors, would see an end of US, Argentinean and Brazilian soybean meal imports, without any compensating imports from other exporting countries. This would leave an import deficit of 32.3 million tonnes in soybean meal equivalent. Taking into account an assumed increase in rapeseed meal and sunflower meal production and imports, the net shortage of soybean meal could lead to a fall in poultry production to 29 per cent and 44 per cent below the baseline level in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

A sharp increase in price of poultry would attract imports and EU exports would disappear. The Commission report also has similar negative forecasts for the pig and beef meat sectors.

Climatic and agronomic factors mean Europe is unable to produce most of the
oilseed meal and other protein-rich feedstuffs required to feed its livestock. In fact, the EU imports about 77 per cent of its protein needs. There is no viable prospect of significantly increasing domestic production of protein rich plants.

EuropaBio and other industry bodies including European commodity traders, European Feed Manufacturers, European seed and bean crushers, meal producers and vegetable producers/processors welcomed the report and called for urgent action.

The industry urged Member States to vote to approve, in a timely manner, GM crops that have received a positive safety assessment from the EU’s independent scientific body, the European Food Safety Authority, and to keep pace with approvals in key trading partners of the EU.

In its response to the report, the industry also noted that Commissioners Mandelson, Fischer Boel and Kyprianou have all acknowledged recently the supply crisis developing in the European feed industry and the need to find practical solutions. “This underscores the need to improve the EU approval system (….) or risk threatening Europe’s ability to fundamentally source sufficient feed for our livestock sector,” says the industry group

In particular, the zero tolerance that is in operation for the low level presence of EU unapproved GM plant materials found in imported commodities, which have been approved by other regulatory agencies, is disproportionate to any potential risk.

The EU needs a workable tolerance for the low level presence of products that have obtained a positive opinion from the European Food Safety Authority or have been approved by another OECD country to be present in cargoes of traded commodities.

This will avoid disrupting international trade, limit the impact on EU agriculture in the short term and enable other countries the freedom to continue to choose between different farming systems.