USTR Zoellick links EU biotech ban to Africa hunger
Date: 11-Nov-02
Country: USA
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick told reporters "time will tell" if the United States will seek World Trade Organization intervention in the expanding biotech fight.
Last month, Zambia announced it would not accept biotech corn (maize) after scientists there said there was insufficient evidence on the safety of that food.
Zambia, which needs about 12,000 tonnes of food aid a month, is one of six southern African countries facing famine. A shipment of 7,000 tonnes of U.S. food awaiting delivery to Zambia was diverted because of the government's biotech decision.
Besides safety concerns, some African countries also have expressed concerns that acceptance of biotech food could jeopardize future food shipments to the EU.
For the past three years, the EU has imposed a moratorium on new biotech products, including food and pharmaceuticals. Attempts to drop that moratorium have so far been unsuccessful.
"It gets much more worrisome when the European anxieties and fears and paranoias prevent starving people from getting food," Zoellick said after speaking to an African development conference.
Earlier this year, the Bush administration was downplaying the idea of filing a time-consuming WTO complaint against the EU, hoping EU members would voluntarily ease the restrictions.
But a U.S. trade source on Wednesday told Reuters, the administration was "clearly gearing up for a GMO case at the behest of some agriculture groups."
The source, who asked not to be identified, said an interagency review is currently underway.
The first step would be a U.S. request at the WTO for consultations with the EU on the biotech trade problem.
If consultations were not productive, the United States could ask for a WTO panel to decide whether the EU had violated trade rules in setting the moratorium.
Besides the moratorium, the United States also has expressed concerns over EU biotech food labeling proposals and a requirement that all genetically-modified foods be traceable to the farms that grew them.
