LONDON -- The debate over genetically modified crops in Europe has taken a back seat to more immediate concerns about foot-and-mouth disease, but for those involved in the fight, the issue of biotech foods looms as large as ever.
With the spring planting season rolling on and the latest farm-scale trials for genetically modified sugar and fodder beet and oilseed rape getting underway in the U.K, there sprouts a perennial crop of questions, all along the supply chain, about whether there really is a market for genetically modified products.
Tony Combes, director of corporate affairs for Monsanto U.K. Ltd., has heard the doubts before, and says they're neatly answered by U.S. Department of Agriculture data about the planting intentions of U.S. farmers.
"Every year at this time, we get comments about the market disappearing," Combes said. "And every year we see an increase in plantings of genetically modified crops."
Paul Rylott, seeds manager at Aventis SA (AVE), said that as some of the crops being tested in the U.K. are being grown for the second and third times, people can see for themselves "that it's not a scary thing."
However, it's not entirely clear that acceptance of such crops in the U.S., or anecdotal evidence of acceptance in the U.K., equates to automatic acceptance in the rest of Europe.
In Germany, Greenpeace's international coordinator of the campaign against genetically modified crops is a firm believer that even as the crop science companies press ahead with development efforts in Europe, they're racing to supply a vanishing market.
"You have the seed suppliers who say, 'We don't want (genetically modified organisms) in our supply,' and so forth," said Benedikt Haerlin. "I think this is the time of many big customers in the seed and food sector trying to keep their lines clean. And these are long-term business commitments - it's not just political ups-and-downs. Once a company decides they want to go biotech-free on their food supply, they want to secure that for a longer period."
The investments that companies like Monsanto have already poured into researching genetically modified crops would appear to speak volumes about the their optimism for eventual success.
Not surprisingly, Haerlin sees it differently.
"Rejection from the farmers" is keeping genetically modified crops out of the market, he said. "They don't want to get this contamination problem. There's massive rejection from major food companies and feed companies and cooperatives who don't want to get this in their milk and so forth. So the customers aren't there - it's going to create problems."
In December, for example, Eridania Beghin-Say SA's (F.BaSA) Central Soy Co. unit cited "customers' needs" when it said in December that it would switch exclusively to non-genetically modified soybeans at its soy protein concentrate facility in Bordeaux, France.
The fear of contamination is also driving individual European governments to tighten controls. In March, Italy seized shipments of corn and soybeans from Monsanto that were believed to contain genetically modified seed. The company was later allowed to distribute the material after it was cleared in lab tests, but in the interim Monsanto's Italian depot at Lodi, where the seeds were sequestered, was hit by arson.
Haerlin said the strategy of the crop science companies at the moment is to try and win European approval for products that have already been introduced elsewhere.
"Basically I understand what they're trying to do is to sell what they have already sold in the U.S.," Haerlin said. "And they are following a strategy of 'Keep nagging and wait for a rollback (in regulations) at some point,' which I don't see at the moment, frankly."
Just as important as the biotech firms' laboratory work is their fight to win public acceptance for genetically modified crops.
The longevity of campaigns like the one run by Greenpeace and their success in keeping the matter in the public eye might suggest consumers are increasingly paying heed to the messages of the environmental groups. But as with most other aspects of the debate, it's all in who you ask.
Vivian Moses, chairman of the pro-biotechnology CropGen panel, said public opinion actually appears to have grown more accepting of genetically modified crops.
"I suspect that here and there people might be getting a little fed up with (the environmental protesters) because nothing's actually happened," said Moses, who is also a professor of biology. "If something happened it would be different, but crying wolf forever has the usual effect."
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