Parliament's agriculture committee chief calls for review of policy on GM feed

Source: press release

Date published: April 24 2008

Neil Parish, the Chair of parliament’s agriculturecommittee has called on the EU to review its policy forapprovals of GM feed.

Parish has tabled an oral question asking the Europeancommission to review the current zero-tolerance regime on importedfeed stuffs containing traces of GM soya or maize. At present anycontainer arriving in an EU port with even a trace of GMcontamination is in danger of being sent back, thus limiting theability of EU farmers to source non GM feed.

The British EPP-ED deputy has also asked for the commission tospeed up its approvals process for new varieties of GM feed deemedto be safe by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Recently,the Herculex variety of GM feed took 34 months to be approved forimport into the EU. This compares to an average of 15 months in theUS. There are currently over 50 varieties of GM feed waiting to beapproved by the commission.

As 90 per cent of meat imported into the EU has come fromanimals fed on GM feed varieties, many of which are unapproved inthe EU, farmers in Europe have to compete with imported meatproducts from animals that have been fed directly on GM. With nonGM soya currently selling at roughly £65 (€81) per tonne more thanGM varieties, this puts UK farmers at a significant competitivedisadvantage.

"The commission must address what is a fundamentally unbalancedand discriminatory system. It is a great irony that we importpoultry, pig and beef meet from outside the EU from animals fed onproducts we deny our own farmers. This helps no-one, consumers haveno idea whether their meat has been fed on GM and farmers have topay through the nose for feed,” said Parish.

"We also have to address the zero tolerance issue. I am notsuggesting a free for all on GM, but we must ensure that anythreshold is fair and achievable for non GM feed. With newvarieties of GM soya being planted around the world, it will bevirtually impossible to guarantee that any shipment into the EU istruly GM free. I doubt anyone will bother sending GM free shipmentsto the EU as a result and this will make non GM feed even scarcerand more expensive for our farmers.

"If the EU does not take urgent action on both these issues, we arein danger of exporting much of our industry outside of the EU."

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