Trade Debate Echoes Business, Consumer Concerns

FOODS: Fears over genetic alterations

Tom Abate / San Francisco Chronicle 25nov99

On the table when the World Trade Organization meets in Seattle next week will be an issue that affects the taste buds, checkbooks and perhaps the health of American grocery shoppers -- the export of genetically engineered foods.

The trade summit will give many Americans their first exposure to a controversy that has raged in Europe, where stories about "Frankenfoods'' suggest that genetically altered soybeans, corn and other crops pose unknown dangers to animals, humans and the environment.

So far, most American consumers seem unconcerned -- or at least uninformed -- that the corn syrup in Coke and the flakes in their Kellogg's carton probably contain corn that was genetically modified to kill bugs that eat the plant. The U.S. government says consumers are right to be indifferent, contending that modified corn is no different from standard varieties.

But opposition to the technology is growing in this country, especially among organic foods advocates.

Alice Waters, owner of Berkeley's Chez Panisse restaurant and a leader of the natural foods movement, said: "We are way behind the Europeans on this. This is even more frightening than pesticides. We're really upsetting the web of life when we make genetic alterations.''

The industry advocates flocking to the WTO meeting call such concerns irrational and say the genetic enhancements do nothing more than improve resistance to pests and disease.

"There's not a shred of evidence these products are unsafe; quite to the contrary, they have benefits to farmers and consumers,'' said Val Giddings, vice president for the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Washington. "Issues of food safety are only likely to come up in terms of propaganda by critics.''

But the foes of genetically engineered foods have the industry on the defensive.

Their movement already has resulted in European importers rejecting $400 million worth of U.S. feed corn, on the grounds that the corn could not be certified as being free of genetic modifications. And proposed new food labeling rules in Europe could prevent U.S. farmers and processed-food makers from exporting other products if they contain even trace amounts of genetically altered material.

U.S. negotiators will head to Seattle badly isolated. In Japan, consumers are afraid their tofu might contain genetically modified soybeans. Many Canadians also are demanding that foods be labeled if they contain what the Europeans call genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Canada and Japan will lead an international effort to force the WTO to discuss, and perhaps amend, current trade rules -- favored by the United States -- that require that all objections to genetically modified foods be based solely on "scientific'' grounds.

"We can only come out worse (from such a discussion) than we went in,'' a senior U.S. official complained.

But Washington -- which is hoping that the status quo will prevail --is in a bind. If the trade ministers depart Seattle without addressing the controversy, their inaction could revive a competing international negotiation, the Biosafety Protocol. And that would be even more unfriendly to exports of bioengineered foods.

An outgrowth of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the Biosafety Protocol has brought together environmental ministers from every U.N. member state. At their February meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, the ministers nearly enacted rules that would have allowed nations to exclude genetically modified foods on the grounds that such high-tech crops might undermine local agricultural practices.

The United States and a handful of other grain exporting nations managed to block that move. Now opponents aim to make the pro- trade WTO deadlock on the issue.

"If nothing happens in Seattle, that would be very significant,'' said Kristin Dawkins, a genetically modified foods opponent with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. "It would confirm that the Biosafety Protocol is the proper forum for these issues.''

The U.S. negotiating strategy in Seattle seems aimed at engaging other nations in a discussion that would take no action to change current international trade rules, while working behind the scenes to persuade Europe and Japan and other countries to dismantle their regulatory roadblocks.

"We start with the analysis that the Europeans are our primary challenge,'' said a senior U.S. official.

Some European officials say privately that the reaction to bioengineered foods on their shores has gotten out of hand.

"The opposition is being sustained and encouraged by various parties within and outside governments for reasons of protectionism and institutional self-interest which have little to do with the alleged risks to consumers or the environment,'' groused one senior official with the European Commission.

U.S. officials contend that Europeans, alarmed by mad cow disease and other food mishaps having nothing to do with genetic engineering, have demonized food technology. European demands that processed foods be labeled if they contain 1 percent of bioengineered ingredients could nip biotech agriculture in the bud, those officials fear.

But so far, the only direct effect on U.S. exports has been the loss of the feed-corn sales.

A third of the U.S. corn crop, and half of all American soybeans, are planted with genetically altered seeds, making for a huge potential impact in the Midwest, where such crops are grown.

Soybean producers are worried about labeling. Soybean extracts go into many processed foods, and consumers in many nations might shun any food labeled as genetically modified.

So far, California, the nation's largest food producer and exporter, has remained above the fray. Louis Brown, trade expert for the California Farm Bureau, said California crops such as fruits and nuts are not yet genetically engineered. Cotton, the one California export that is genetically modified, isn't a food.

"California farmers can afford to wait and see,'' Brown said.

Meanwhile, public concern has begun to grow, and the Food and Drug Administration has begun a series of public hearings on the safety of bioengineered foods. Legislation calling for labeling of genetically engineered foods has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

For opponents like Michael Hansen, a researcher with Consumer Policy Institute, a division of Consumers Union, the public re-examination of U.S. policy toward this technology is overdue. Hansen thinks the FDA erred in 1992, when it decided that genetically altered crops are no different from varieties created through traditional plant breeding techniques.

That decision, which is being challenged in federal court, gave bioengineered crops the benefit of the doubt, presuming them safe unless shown otherwise, thus putting the burden of proof on opponents.

"There is no hard evidence now that the foods out on the market will be harmful,'' Hansen said. "But that's because there hasn't been adequate safety testing done.''

In the short term, it may be that consumer preference, whether science-based or fanciful, may have more effect on genetically engineered foods than all the world's trade ministers and protesters combined.

As the California Farm Bureau's Brown put it: "This is a totally market-driven concept. Farmers can't afford to plant such crops if consumers won't buy them.''

If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org