ASA has led efforts to oppose the EU’s new regulations requiring traceability and labeling (T&L) of food products containing biotech ingredients. These new regulations are not based on science, are discriminatory, and will negatively impact U.S. soy, corn, and food exports to the EU. Worse yet, the EU’s regulations likely will be imposed on may developing countries wishing to export to the EU, and will be copied by other nations just as the EU’s first biotech labeling law was copied. Congress should urge the Administration to challenge these regulations that will damage U.S. commodity and food exports, initially to the EU and potentially to many other countries around the globe.

The EU suspended approvals for importing new biotech crops in 1999, resulting in annual losses of $200 million in U.S. corn sales. The EU also initiated a requirement that food products containing ingredients with 1.0% or more biotech content must be labeled. As a result, food manufacturers who sell in the EU have reduced U.S.-origin soybean oil in their products, and U.S. soybean sales declined by 1.0 million tons (27%) in 2002-03.

Last year, the EU approved a new regulation under which food products containing ingredients with 0.9% or more biotech content must be labeled. The regulation also requires traceability documentation to determine whether ingredients in food products with no discernable biotech content were processed from biotech commodities. ASA estimates that this T&L regulation will result in further reformulation away from U.S.-origin soybean oil, and loss of an additional 1.0 million tons of soybean exports.

Efforts are underway to convince EU Member States to mitigate the impact of the new regulation on trade when it takes effect in April. Also, the EU is suggesting that implementation of the regulation will allow resumption of new biotech crop approvals. Despite these efforts and assurances, ASA and 21 other ag-based groups requested the Administration in November 2003 to file a dispute settlement proceeding against the EU. The request pointed out that no mitigation could offset the 0.9% labeling requirement, or reinstate lost sales of U.S. commodities and food products to the EU market. It also raised concern that, unless confronted immediately, the EU regulation would become a precedent for regulating biotech imports by other countries.