GM row nearly closed farms
The US is the source of much of the millions of tonnes of imported maize that fattens most of Europe’s livestock (and 29 million tonnes of imported soya which helps them to grow).
The calls were made when it emerged that 1,000 tonnes of Bt10 maize from the US have entered the EU, although this genetically modified crop is not certified in the US or Europe.
The European Commission responded by requiring all corn gluten and brewers grains from the US be certified as Bt10 free.
At least, those who called for a total ban on American maize exposed the dangers inherent in the EU’s long established policy of importing cheap animal feed to overcome its own substantial animal feed deficit.
Ever since the Common Agricultural Policy was founded in 1962, animal feed has been one of the few agricultural commodities which can be imported duty-free.
In 2000, the EU imported about 50 million tonnes of feed.
Broadly speaking, the CAP is still based on the premise that it is cheaper to import plant proteins than to grow them.
Unfortunately, the US seems to have taken their appointment as the main animal feed suppliers to Europe for granted, with their Department of Agriculture learning about the illegal Bt10 maize in December 2004, but conveniently forgetting to inform Brussels.
Hence the outraged calls here for all US feeds to be banned, and the condemnation by German Consumer Affairs Minister Renate Kuenast, for example, of the “unbelievable sloppiness” of mixing genetically modified maizes in with other feeds.
But that’s the system Europe has bought into - unless it decides to give up “industrial” scale livestock rearing, and instead rear animals more naturally on European grass and cereals only.
Farmers, or the Commission, won’t make that huge decision, but maybe consumers will make it for them.
Consumers have already seen how a system of livestock production based on the cheapest feeds from around the world resulted in the BSE and Belgian dioxin scandals.
Bt10 is just more of the same, as far as consumers are concerned. The first genetically modified products imported into Europe were feed crops (maize, rapeseed, and soybean) from the US. No doubt the European Commission hoped consumers would have to accept these genetically modified products as a fait accompli. However, the BSE scandal changed all that.
A few more GM controversies, and the European Commission may have to re-think its policy of relying on the genetically modified world beyond its borders for cheap animal feed.
But such a policy turnaround is too huge to contemplate - unless the European food industry forces the Commission’s hand, by deciding en masse that it more logical to import the finished animal than the animal feed.
Already, some of the biggest EU poultry processors have realised they could increase their profits, by producing in countries like Brazil, where labour is less expensive, and environmental regulations less stringent.
The eventual dismantling of import barriers by the WTO, and the accompanying obligation on the EU to import more and more agricultural produce, could force even Irish meat processors to follow the textile industry to low cost countries like Brazil.
The only thing stopping them now is that consumers like to know their meat is produced in Europe where they can rely on some kind of control over its safety - even if the livestock are fed on genetically modified grain and soya bean from the other side of the world.
