No to GE Corn - safe food now
A Greenpeace report released today indicates that Brazil has a
golden opportunity to further capitalise
on its current market advantage of being the only one of the
world´s top three soya producers not allowing genetically
engineered (GE) crops.
Brazil has already gained market shares and premiums as a result
of the increased demand for non-GE food. Providing that the
country´s non-GE
status remains, the anticipated market shift to non-GE animal
feed in Europe and the rapid increase of the non-GE share of the
Asian food market
will impact Brazilian exporters even more significantly, because
of the sheer volume of the trade involved. The report was launched
as a delegation
of European meat producers arrived in Brazil to secure their
non- GE supplies for the future following the news that Brazil
might reconsider its
non-GE status. (1-2)
The European soyameal imports and Chinese and Japanese soyabean
imports together amount to 40 million metric tonnes - compared to
Brazil´s
exports of 15 MMT of soyabeans and 10 MMT of soyameal. The
European food market is already virtually non-GE, and its animal
feed market,
capturing the vast majority of soya imports, is estimated to be
20-25% non-GE and rapidly increasing. Japan is also significantly
non-GE, and China
has recently introduced GE labelling and safety regulations.
"Brazil has a great opportunity now to dominate a multimillion
dollar market by exporting only non-GE soya, maize and meat", said
Mariana Paoli,
Greenpeace Brazil. "It would be contrary to good business sense
to quit the game while being ahead. Brazil is the forerunner in a
non-GE market
that is booming."
Since the introduction of GE soya in the US, the volume of US
soyabean exports to Europe has dropped from 9.2 million tonnes in
1996 to 6.8 million
tonnes in 2000 while Brazilian non- GE soyabean exports to
Europe have increased from 3.1 million tonnes to 6.3 million tonnes
(3). US maize and
Canadian canola/rapeseed have suffered even more dramatic market
losses (4).
"A number of world trade factors have affected the volume of
soybean and meal exports from the US, Argentina and Brazil.
However, as the
company statements and markets analysis quoted in this report
clearly demonstrate, the fact that international rejection of GE
crops has increased
demand for Brazilian soya cannot be disputed", said
Jean-François Fauconnier, markets specialist at Greenpeace
International.
Some in Brazil believe that the country can grow both GE and
non-GE varieties of crops, and allow producers to supply whichever
their customers
ask for. Experience in the US and Canada shows that such an
approach is extremely expensive. Even companies that go to the cost
of keeping
commodities separate still risk that the segregation systems
will go wrong (5). "You can´t do both: GE crops contaminate
conventional crops and
handling systems and drive up the costs of production throughout
the sector", added Fauconnier.
Worried that Brazil might approve GE crops in the future,
European companies are gradually moving towards buying certified,
fully traceable
non-GE soya and also purchasing from alternative sources, e.g.
India, in order to avoid the risk of contamination and comply with
upcoming European
legislation on traceability of genetically modified organisms
(GMOs). At the same time, US, Canadian and Argentinean exporters
have already
started to set up segregation systems to meet the increasing
non-GE demand from Europe and Asia and regain their lost export
markets. "The use of
GE crops in Brazil would be an environmental and commercial
suicide caused by political and foreign companies´ influence rather
than by market
demand and the interests of the Brazilian consumers and
industry," concluded Paoli.