Read at : http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/01/28/FoodFight/
Food Fight: Canada vs. Europe
We’re forcing GMOs on people who fear them.
TheTyee.ca
Challenging Europeans over their right to choose what food they grow and eat seems like a lousy way to make friends across the Atlantic. But this is exactly what Canada has done by giving the European Union a deadline of Feb. 11 to change its policies on genetically modified foods. Canada wants to open up the European market to imports of Canadian genetically modified products, particularly canola oil. The big stick Canada can wield is a November 2006 World Trade Organization ruling. The WTO decreed in a complaint brought by the U.S., Canada and Argentina that the EU had violated its WTO obligations by creating “undue delays” in the approval of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). If the EU does not comply with the WTO ruling, it could have to pay the price in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars in trade sanctions. Europe has been given what is considered a reasonable period to comply, but time is now running out.
Europeans won’t be bullied
This is no minor issue in Europe. The European Commission has been surveying attitudes towards GMOs in all member states for 15 years now, and despite intense marketing efforts by international agribusiness, the opposition to GMOs only seems to be growing. The EU’s pollsters have discovered a “striking” decline in acceptance of GM foods over recent years even though Europeans are expressing support for other uses of biotechnology.
Helen Holder, GMO campaign coordinator at Friends of the Earth Europe, told The Tyee that a triumphalist “We won!” North American attitude over the WTO decision will not wash in Europe. Holder argued the panel’s narrow ruling on technical grounds did not mean Canada and the U.S. could bully Europeans into accepting GM food. She pointed out that the WTO never concluded that GMOs were safe.
Holder said that if the spirit of the era was “the market must decide,” then the answer seemed clear: the European market had largely decided against GMOs. She pointed to consumer-driven decisions by major European food chains such as Tesco to not stock genetically-modified foods.
Sarkozy sides with Bove
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New studies, more European GM bans
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New science, leaked fears
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Canadians equally opposed
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Ag Minister Ritz: ‘Terminator’ friendly
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Related Tyee stories:
- Deconstructing Dinner
Podcasts with text, most recently focusing on genetically engineered food. - Sterile Seeds, Canada’s Impotence
Why was Africa’s ‘Father of Biosafety’ hassled at our nation’s gates? - Slow Food’s Growing Pains
Want to eat local? You’ll have to get in line.
Murray Dobbin writes his State of the Nation column twice monthly for The Tyee. Ellen Gould is a researcher and writer on food and policy issues.
Posted in GMO
