Growers and Grocers

The World Trade Organization has rebuked the European Union for banning the import of genetically modified food from 1998 to 2004. The EU did this because it wanted more testing of GM food.

That seems like a reasonable request, but this USA Today article suggests why some countries in the WTO were so annoyed: “the complaint was filed by the USA, Argentina and Canada. Together, they are the world’s largest producers of corn, soybeans, cotton, rapeseed (canola) and rice engineered to contain bacteria genes that can resist herbicides or insects.”

Not only that, those countries have a huge surplus of food they need to sell. Typically, Europe has been a big market for our excess grain. Their refusal to buy GM food has hurt U.S. exports in a noticeable way. Naturally, the U.S. government feels that its policy of testing GM foods—best summarized as “Well, we didn’t find anything in a month”—should be adequate insurance against Europe’s fears. The EU members raise a skeptical eyebrow, and so do many other nations around the globe, which has further tightened the market for American grain.

Even though the EU has lifted the ban, the U.S., Canada, and Argentina have continued to push for the final ruling on Europe’s misbehavior, no doubt to dissuade them from adopting such a rational stance in the future.

In truth, the EU seems to have a knee-jerk reaction to GM food, rejecting it absolutely until 2004. GM by itself isn’t evil, but it becomes a real danger when companies don’t adequately test the effects of GMOs in the wild. Given a choice between the U.S.’s blasé attitude about the technology and Europe’s rabid opposition, I’ll take Europe’s stance any day.