USGC says EU approval good for US
With the European Union’s approval late last month of three types of genetically enhanced corn for food, feed, processing and import, the US Grains Council is hopeful the approval of feed byproducts will soon follow.
USGC President Ken Hobbie says the European Union has zero duty on feed byproducts coming into the EU, “At one time they were taking 6.5 Million metric tons of corn gluten feed (CGF) and we had just begun to make inroads with DDGS’s when they started testing and determining they could detect unapproved events in those products and a result of that the trade shut down.”
On October 30th, the EU approved two corn technologies developed by Monsanto and one jointly developed by DuPont’s Pioneer and by Dow AgroSciences, “It’s a very important start towards the backlog of unapproved events that are preventing us from commercially participating in the market.”
Hobbie says one other significant “event” is pending, “Which is a trait from Syngenta that, if approved, would pretty much clear the way for us to regain full commercial activity in the European Union markets.”
Hobbie says the USGC will continue to push the EU for approval. Europe has zero tolerance for unapproved GM grains. Hobbie says these are the first approvals the U.S. has received in about two years – since the EU adopted strict regulations.
U.S. Grains Council
AUDIO: Ken Hobbie, President & CEO, U.S. Grains Council (5:00 min., MP3)
