Europe Must Listen to Mandelson on GM Food

The European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, last week, and for the umpteenth time, appealed to European countries to adopt an open approach to agricultural biotechnology and genetically modified (GM) food.

In a speech during the European Biotechnology Open Day in Brussels, Belgium, Mr. Mandelson counseled Europe to embrace biotechnology that “… prioritizes strict science-based health and safety testing but which recognizes that safe biotechnology has a crucial role to play in agriculture and agricultural trade both in Europe and the developing world.”

He warned Europe against stonewalling on biotechnology, and especially genetically modified food.. “We must be under no illusion that Europe’s interests are served by being outside a global market that is steadily working its way through the issues raised by GM food. They are not!” Said Mr. Mandelson.

It’s not the first time Mr. Mandelson is asking European countries to discard their negative and misplaced perceptions about agricultural biotechnology and GM foods. On several occasions, Mr. Mandelson has questioned Europe’s recalcitrant stand on GM foods.

Soon after the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a ruling that found the EU in violation of international trade rules for placing a moratorium (since lifted) on GM foods in 2005, Mr. Mandelson called for a civil debate on GMOs. He argued that the debate about the pros of genetically modified foods must be anchored on verifiable scientific facts.

In his last week’s speech, Mr. Mandelson moaned that the current GMOs debate disregard scientific facts, and, instead, dwells on generalizations. Nobody can dispute Mr. Mandelson’s assertion that raw politics is what drives the GMOs debate. We have anti-biotechnology activists saying this and that about GM food without adducing scientific evidence. These people see nothing positive in food biotechnology, and this is what has polarized the debate on GM food.

Despite Mr. Mandelson’s protestations, Europe’s stance on GM food, unfortunately, hasn’t changed, which prompts me to ask, “Do European countries believe in their own institutions?” I don’t think they do. If they did, they would have listened to Mr. Mandelson. How comes Mr. Mandelson acknowledges genetic engineering pros, while countries that he represents don’t?

Mr. Mandelson’s views on GM food are not his own. They reflect the official position of the EU, to which countries that oppose them belong. Why they, deliberately, refuse to heed Mr. Mandelson’s advice is really intriguing.

Poor countries excuse themselves from crop genetic engineering on pretext that that they lack mechanisms to test the safety of GM food. The EU, as Mr. Mandelson puts it in his Brussels speech, has such mechanisms, but it has refused to use them, and instead relied on anti-biotechnology advocacy groups such as the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to shape policy.

As I have repeatedly stated in this blog, the EU’s policy on GM food hurts not only European countries, but also developing countries. These countries would not dare practice biotech agriculture for fear of losing European markets for their agricultural products. By default, the EU is preventing the developing world to plant GM crops. This is unacceptable. Crop genetic engineering is a reality that won’t disappear just because a scare-monger somewhere is saying this and that about GM food.