Brussels, Belgium
July, 2009
 The
global pipeline of new GM crops: implications of asynchronous
approval for international trade
Authors: Alexander J. Stein and Emilio Rodríguez-Cerezo
EUR Number: 23486 EN
Publication date: 7/2009
Abstract
The commercialisation of GM
crops is a regulated activity and different countries have
different authorisation procedures, i.e. new GM crops do not
get simultaneously approved worldwide. This "asynchronous
approval" (AA) is of growing concern for its potential
impact on international trade, especially if countries
operate a "zero tolerance" policy that may result in
rejections of imports that contain only traces of such GMOs;
a similar problem of "low-level presence" (LLP) of
unapproved GM material in imports arises when developers of
new GM crops do not seek approval in export markets, i.e.
when there is "isolated foreign approval" (IFA) in their
home countries only. LLP incidents have already caused trade
disruption and economic problems, in particular for the EU
feed and livestock sector.
To forecast the future evolution of LLP, a global pipeline
of new GM crops was established. While currently there are
around 30 commercial GM events cultivated worldwide, by 2015
there could be over 120. If problems with LLP have occurred
in the past, these are likely to intensify. Moreover, GM
events can easily be combined ("stacked") by conventional
cross-breeding, thus creating more "new" GMOs (in countries
where stacked crops are regulated like new GMOs). Also the
issue of IFA is bound to increase with more GM crops being
developed by technology providers in Asia for domestic
markets.
For actors in the global agri-food chain the main problem of
LLP is the economic risk of rejections of shipments at the
EU border. Part of this problem consists of the "destination
risk", i.e. the official testing for unauthorised material
only in the port of destination. When compliance with a zero
tolerance policy for LLP becomes impossible, exporters may
only deal with "preferred buyers" who are known to create
little problems. Otherwise, if the risk of rejection
increases, so will the price. This will affect EU businesses
that are dependent on cheap agricultural imports.
Full report:
ftp://ftp.jrc.es/pub/EURdoc/report_GMOpipeline_online_preprint.pdf
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