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25/04/2008

Feed situation must be addressed

As livestock farmers continue to suffer due to high feed prices, Conservative MEP for Wales Jonathan Evans has called on the EU to review its policy for approvals of GM feed.

The Conservatives in the European Parliament have tabled a question asking to European Commission to review the current zero-tolerance regime on imported feed stuffs containing traces of GM soya or maize.

At present any container arriving in an EU port with even a trace of GM contamination is in danger of being sent back, thus limiting the ability of EU farmers to source non GM feed.

Mr Evans says that the Commission should speed up its approvals process for new varieties of GM feed deemed to be safe by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Recently, the Herculex variety of GM feed took 34 months to be approved for import into the EU. This compares to an average of 15 months in the United States. There are currently over 50 varieties of GM feed waiting to be approved by the Commission.

As 90 per cent of meat imported into the EU has come from animals fed on GM feed varieties, many of which are unapproved in the EU, farmers in Europe have to compete with imported meat products from animals that have been fed directly on GM. With non GM soya currently selling at roughly £65 per tonne more than GM varieties, this puts UK farmers at a significant competitive disadvantage.

Mr Evans said:"The Commission must address what is a fundamentally unbalanced and discriminatory system. It is a great irony that we import poultry, pig and beef meat from outside the EU from animals fed on products we deny our own farmers. This helps no-one, consumers have no idea whether their meat has been fed on GM and farmers have to pay through the nose for feed.

"We also have to address the zero tolerance issue. I am not suggesting a free for all on GM, but we must ensure that any threshold is fair and achievable for non GM feed. With new varieties of GM soya being planted around the world, it will be virtually impossible to guarantee that any shipment into the EU is truly GM free. I doubt anyone will bother sending GM free shipments to the EU as a result and this will make non GM feed even scarcer and more expensive for our farmers.

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

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