Syngenta says prices influenced China rejection of GMO U.S. corn

(Reuters) - Syngenta AG said on Tuesday that grain prices have played a role in China's rejection of U.S. corn shipments containing an unauthorized, genetically modified trait developed by the company.

China, the world's third-biggest corn buyer, has turned away since November more than 900,000 tonnes of U.S. corn containing Syngenta's Agrisure Viptera trait.

"There's unquestionably a global trade issue at play here relating to contracts and prices," said David Morgan, Syngenta's regional director of North America.

Syngenta, the world's largest crop chemicals company, has been waiting for China to approve Viptera, known as MIR 162, for import for more than four years.

Beijing started cracking down on shipments containing the trait late last year, even though Viptera corn had been mixed in with other varieties since China increased imports of U.S. corn in 2011.

The rejections have fueled speculation among grain traders that China was strictly enforcing its ban as a way to exit contracts for pricey corn and to prevent imports into a well-supplied market. U.S. corn futures soared to $8 a bushel last summer and dropped almost 50 percent by November.

Pressure from Chinese who believe the country should be more self sufficient in food production is another explanation for the government's rejections of U.S. corn containing Viptera, Morgan said. There is no one reason behind the rejections, he added.

China's Biosafety Committee is due to meet this week or next to decide whether to approve Viptera, engineered to offer protection against crop-damaging insects.

After years of waiting for approval, Morgan said he had become "sober" in his expectations of what would come out of China.

"I'm hopeful that they will proceed in the next discussion but until we hear from them, I'm not going to count any chickens, as they say," he said in a telephone interview.

Niu Dun, China's vice agriculture minister, said in December that Viptera corn could not be accepted because it had not been approved by the ministry for import.

China has found its debate over imports of GMO farm products "to be a convenient tool to use to try and protect the Chinese market," Fred Gale, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's China chair, said at a conference this month.

China holds more than 90 million tonnes of corn in state stockpiles. Traders are expecting the government to sell some grain as early as May. Reuters

GE Labeling Bill

GE Labeling Resurrected in California, Petition For Ballot Measure Circulating in Colorado

California’s 2012 food-labeling ballot measure, rejected by state voters, makes a return from the grave tomorrow with a public hearing in Sacramento. And another state initiative is in the offing in Colorado.

Since the narrow loss for the Golden State’s Proposition 37, which called for labeling foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), almost half the states have seen bills introduced containing similar language.

But moving a GMO-labeling bill through a statehouse has not been easy task. In Colorado, for example, a group calling itself Right to Know Colorado GMO, is avoiding the state’s legislature entirely. It has already filed Initiative 48. With court approval for their ballot title, the group’s next task is to obtain 86,105 valid voter signatures on petitions for submittal to the state by early August.

If the measure qualifies for the ballot, Colorado voters would decide whether food with GMOs sold in the state after July 1, 2016, will be required to have language on the label stating: “Produced With Genetic Engineering.”

Californians for GE Food Labeling — a coalition made up of environmental, foodie and consumer groups — is pitching Senate Bill 1381 as a “simpler, cleaner” version of the ill-fated Prop. 37.

Sponsored by state Sen. Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), SB 1381 is one of the few surviving state bills calling for labeling foods with GE ingredients. Evans has more time than most to work the bill as the California General Assembly does not adjourn until Nov. 30. Election-year adjournments for most state legislatures occur much sooner.

Last week, Hawaii House Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Jessica Wooley tried a legislative maneuver to keep a GMO-labeling bill alive. She gutted an unrelated agriculture bill and substituted language for the GMO-labeling requirements.

But her colleagues resisted the move when state officials questioned how the measure could be enforced. “From an enforcement standpoint, unless we have the entire genome of the plant, we won’t be able to test,” said Gary Gill, deputy director of the Hawaii Department of Health.

The bill with the substitute language was then “deferred indefinitely,” effecting killing GM labeling for at least another year in Hawaii. There might be time for another last-minute revival of the GMO bill as the Hawaii Legislature adjourns in early May, but that would happen only if the votes are certain.

State lawmakers in Vermont also go home in early May, and the GE-labeling bill passed by the House there last year still could become law if it can get through the Senate in time.

After a public hearing last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Sears was reported as having concerns about the bill’s dairy exemption and about how much it would cost the relatively small state to defend its action in federal court.

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office estimates that defending a challenge over federal preemption would cost state taxpayers upwards of $5 million if it lost and without much in the way of legal fee recovery.

Sears is concerned that the exemption of Vermont’s dairy industry could make it impossible to pass a judicial test. The Virginia Public Interest Research Group, which wrote H. 112, acknowledged that it left dairy out as a “strategic move.”

Sears said he wants to know if the state can defend a bill that “exempts dairy and not corn chips.”

Amendments to deal with funding the inevitable court challenge and removing the dairy exemption were being advanced in Montpelier to get the Judiciary Committee to move the bill to the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, Vermont’s Senate Judiciary Committee has taken no action on S. 289, a bill that would make owners of genetically engineered seed responsible for its spread to other property.

Word has also gone out in Florida that SB 558, assigned to the Senate Agriculture Committee, will not be heard this session. The bill, which would require raw agricultural commodities found by the legislature to be cultivated in GE form to be labeled, has not received much attention. Lawmakers are scheduled to leave Tallahassee on May 2.

Also not moving is Missouri’s SB 533, which calls for labeling all GE meat and fish sold in the state after Sept. 1, 2016. The Missouri General Assembly does not adjourn until May 30, but SB 533 has been stuck in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Outdoor Resources.

The GE labeling bill in Rhode Island, HB 7042, appear to be dead, having been held in committee for “further study.”

The Washington Legislature left Olympia without taking action on HB 2143, which would have added another layer of prohibitions over raising genetically modified finfish. At a public hearing in January, the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources heard industry testimony to that effect that the existing ban was sufficient. A spokesman for Puget Sound’s 30-year-old farmed Atlantic salmon business says it has no interest in raising any GM fish because customers are not interested in buying them.

Washington state voters last year also narrowly rejected a GM-labeling bill. Connecticut has adopted a GM-labeling bill, but it is contingent on surrounding states passing similar measures. © Food Safety News

GMO Labeling Movement Stagnant in Texas

When Eric Herm heard in 2005 that genetically modified cottonseeds were the latest innovation on the market, he thought he should plant the crop on his family farm near Lubbock.

“I was like, ‘What’s so bad about this,’” he said of the seeds, which are a cheaper way to help crops resist weed and insect damage. “We’re saving money and labor.”

After learning that the “seeds are injected with the genes of herbicides and pesticides,” Herm became critical of the product. “I didn’t want to be consuming that,” he said. “And neither would you.”

Now, Herm is advocating a requirement to include warning labels on consumer products with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. He is among a small group of farmers and environmental advocates pushing for the labeling of GMO products in Texas. But the push is getting little support from the Republican-dominated state leadership or from major agribusinesses.

“I haven’t had a single constituent mention support for GMO labeling to me,” said state Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, a member of the House Agriculture and Livestock Committee. Even if a measure were introduced, he added, it would face a difficult road in the Legislature. 

Herm said it was a struggle to get people’s attention. “Where I live, 90 percent of the people were looking at me like I was saying the aliens are coming,” he said.

GMO products, which are made from planting seeds with engineered DNA, make up about90 percent of cash crops like cotton, corn and soybeans nationwide, according to the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, which supports labeling. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration supports voluntary labeling. GMO foods are required to meet the same safety standards as other foods.

Maine and Connecticut require GMO products to be labeled, and 26 other states have considered legislation. In Texas, there has been no such proposal, though interest has grown. Austin-based Whole Foods Market announced that by 2018, it would label products with genetically modified ingredients.

Most farmers oppose GMO labeling because it brings unnecessary attention to the product, which could slow sales, said Gene Hall, a spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau, which represents agricultural producers across Texas, including large agribusinesses. 

“We don’t need to label something that is absolutely safe,” Hall said.

But activists say the issue is about keeping consumers informed.

“In the U.S., we don’t label dangerous foods — we take it off the marketplace,” said Colin O’Neil, the director of government affairs for the Center for Food Safety. “We’re not saying these products are dangerous, either. We’re just saying consumers have the right to know.”

Some labeling proponents say agribusinesses have lobbied against their efforts. “For a long time, these agribusinesses have been incredibly powerful in keeping GMO labeling out of the Legislature,” said Sara Smith, program director of the nonprofit Texas Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization.

Organic farmers like Herm and Gerald Cole of Taylor, who support GMO labeling, said their smaller numbers were at a disadvantage against food conglomerates.

“They can lobby Congress for their best interest,” Cole said. “We just can’t.”

Hall said he was unaware of the millions spent on lobbying, but added: “There is nothing wrong with it. We’re opposed to labeling, and we’re not afraid to say so.”

Disclosure: Whole Foods Market was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2010 and 2011. The Texas Farm Bureau was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2012 and 2013. (You can also review the full list of Tribune donors and sponsors below $1,000.) 

*Editor's Note: This story has been updated to clarify the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's stance on lobbying. The FDA supports voluntary labeling, and GMO foods are required to meet the same safety standards as other foods.

GM field trials: Indian Regulator proposes but most states decline

GM field trials: Regulator proposes but most states decline

A Business Standard survey shows a majority of the states still firmly against the move while some others are open to consider it only conditionally

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has approved field trials for 11 crop varieties but that clears only the first hurdle in the way of genetically-modified crops. Another major hitch could come from state governments, most of which do not seem to be in a mood to give their go-ahead anytime soon.

A survey conducted by Business Standard reveals that a majority of the country’s states are still firmly against the move, while a few are open to considering only conditionally. Some others are either neutral or might take a decision after the Lok Sabha elections.

According to GEAC officials, maize, mustard and rice are among the crops that have got approval for trials, but the states that are major producers of these crops remain opposed.

A piece of good news, though, has come from Maharashtra and Punjab, two of the largest agricultural states, which have favoured field trials for GM crops.

Officials say the use of high-yield GM crops could prove beneficial, given the growing demand for food grains, vegetables and oil seeds. But apprehensions of health hazard on the use of such seeds for consumable agricultural commodities seem to be playing a spoilsport. India had suspended field trials of these crops a few years ago but the GEAC approval last week for 11 varieties brought the issue back in the limelight.

The environment & forests ministry had in July 2011 made it mandatory for companies, institutes and research bodies to get no-objection certificates from states concerned before conducting trials. Also, GEAC analyses the sites for these trials on several parameters, including whether these are located too close to sanctuaries or water bodies.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has approved field trials for 11 crop varieties but that clears only the first hurdle in the way of genetically-modified crops. Another major hitch could come from state governments, most of which do not seem to be in a mood to give their go-ahead anytime soon.

A survey conducted by Business Standard reveals that a majority of the country’s states are still firmly against the move, while a few are open to considering only conditionally. Some others are either neutral or might take a decision after the Lok Sabha elections.

According to GEAC officials, maize, mustard and rice are among the crops that have got approval for trials, but the states that are major producers of these crops remain opposed.

A piece of good news, though, has come from Maharashtra and Punjab, two of the largest agricultural states, which have favoured field trials for GM crops.

Officials say the use of high-yield GM crops could prove beneficial, given the growing demand for food grains, vegetables and oil seeds. But apprehensions of health hazard on the use of such seeds for consumable agricultural commodities seem to be playing a spoilsport. India had suspended field trials of these crops a few years ago but the GEAC approval last week for 11 varieties brought the issue back in the limelight.

The environment & forests ministry had in July 2011 made it mandatory for companies, institutes and research bodies to get no-objection certificates from states concerned before conducting trials. Also, GEAC analyses the sites for these trials on several parameters, including whether these are located too close to sanctuaries or water bodies. BS