Report comment

Please fill in the form to report an unsuitable comment. State which comment is of concern and why. It will be sent to our moderator for review.

Comment

Dear Sir,

It is hard to believe that Julian Little, chair of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, is given such prominent space for his claims in the leading British retail industry publication (Retailers should copy GM move by Morrisons, The Grocer, 31 March).

Has a tectonic shift occurred overnight that went unnoticed on the European continent but that caused British retailers to align with their GM-lovin’ brethren across the Atlantic? But wait, that can’t be so, because a major drive is currently taking place all over the U.S., causing state legislators to implement regulations demanding labeling of GM food. And that means a LOT of labeling. Trouble is brewing for Monsanto on its home turf.

Sarcasm aside, Little’s article is anachronistic. With the arrival of Luxembourg most recently, now four EU Member States have created national regulations on labeling food products as GM-free. Depending on where one shops, this may be spelled “Nourri sans OGM”, “Ohne Gentechnik”, or “Gentechnik-frei erzeugt”, but the message is always the same: Consumers have the choice of deciding whether they want such a claim-bearing product or the obscure, no-information brand that may be a tad cheaper.

We at AgroTrace are a dedicated importer and distributor of GM-free raw materials, mostly soya meal, from Brazil and India and we can confirm that enough non-GM soya is available. Perhaps Dr Little relies too much on the ISAAA statistics published every February. This year, again, this GM industry-funded lobby group bragged about a huge increase in acreage of GM crops planted.

But we ship tonnages and not acreage. During the 2011/12 season, Brazil alone produced over 7 million metric tons of non-GM soy products that were segregated and certified as having less than 0.1 percent GM content. That is about 20 percent of the entire EU consumption of soya meal.

What availability problem is Dr Little talking about? It seems it is one of wishful thinking. After all, the GM industry sponsors of Dr Little’s employer, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, have predicted such reduced availability since 1999.

It is time for major retailers in Britain and elsewhere to focus on what their customers really want and are willing to pay for, provided they are given the necessary information to make an educated choice.

Jochen Koester
Director
AgroTrace S.A.
Geneva, Switzerland

Your details

Cancel