Opening new markets for biotechnology around the world

Farmer-leaders spread understanding about a critical technology that is sometimes misunderstood. And the voice of the American farmer is their greatest asset.

Ever since the first biotech soybeans hit the market in 1996, studies have shown that farmers globally have saved money on inputs and tillage while increasing yield. Yet in many parts of the world, biotechnology attracts opponents who dispute its proven safety. For that reason, farmer-leaders of the USB are helping to increase understanding about this important technology to support the acceptance of U.S. soybeans globally.

Opposition to biotech crops has been significant. For example, in the late 1990s, activists in England successfully pressured the country’s largest supermarket chains to reformulate their house brands to omit ingredients derived from biotech corn and soybeans. Even today, groups established specifically to oppose biotech crops fight against the technology in nations all over the world, from Australia to the European Union (EU), even in the United States.

Farmer-leaders of the USB have been visiting many of these nations since biotechnology’s earliest days to spread the word about its benefits and safety, thus opening additional markets for U.S. soybean farmers. “We believe the outreach and education the USB provides are critical as we continue to move forward with biotech acceptance around the globe—and thereby open more markets for U.S. soybeans,” said Richard Fordyce, a farmer from Bethany, MO, who also leads USB’s Biotechnology Initiative. Farmer-leaders are assisted by David Green, an expert on EU and global politics who has been working on behalf of the checkoff to gain acceptance of biotech soybeans since they were introduced. The former farmer from Belfast, Ireland, discusses below what’s behind the opposition in the influential, $1 billion EU market and elsewhere, and the important role U.S. soybean farmers play in advancing biotech’s acceptance.

Why do some people oppose biotech crops?
The first biotech soybeans came when Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, was going through a tidal wave of food scares. This included fatally tainted olive oil in Spain; a destructive Listeria outbreak in cheese in the UK; a fatal outbreak of e-coli in the UK; and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow disease), which left several people dead in the mid-1990s. Six months after the Mad Cow tragedy, the first biotech soybeans showed up. People thought “genetically- engineered” food, as they called it, was scary. Activist groups cleverly exploited this, and coined the term “frankenfood,” which made headlines.  In part as a result, the European Union passed a law requiring goods made with ingredients derived from biotech crops to be labeled as such, and at the time, those labels played into this fear. In the U.S., for example, we don’t label food this way unless the item is different in terms of chemical and nutritional characteristics. And biotech crops have been proven to be as safe as their conventional counterparts.

Does the EU accept U.S. soybeans now?
There’s nothing to stop the 27 nations in the EU from importing biotech soybeans that have been approved in the U.S. and the EU; it’s just that market forces and labeling laws there basically keep them out of food—such as the grocery chains that reformulated their products to avoid biotech-derived ingredients. So U.S. soybean farmers sell their commodity soybeans into the EU market, but almost totally for animal feed with only a small portion of non-biotech going to the human food market. They could sell a lot more if more people there accepted biotech ingredients in their food.

What are some of the ways the USB is working to advance education about biotechnology?
The checkoff is working to break down barriers of communication across nations, in language and in understanding, so people will realize that approved biotech crops are safe. We have translated documents such as studies and other supportive materials into at least 12 languages spoken in EU and other nations. In 2009, the checkoff supoorted a Biotech Regulatory Immersion course at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Some 22 people, who serve as regulators in their own countries, making decisions on biotech technology, participated for two weeks in classroom work, then in practical activities such as visiting labs and seeing crops under development. There was one lawyer from a government ministry in Eastern Europe who comes to mind. She was in a lab watching, and then carrying out, gene splicing. Her reaction was, ‘This is so simple, so straightforward.’

What can U.S. soybean farmers do to help?
There’s a great role for U.S. soybean farmers. We have more than 14 years of experience growing herbicide- tolerant soybeans and corn. To be able to share that experience with other farmers across the world, with consumers and regulators, is very effective. I’ve yet to see even the most committed opponent of biotechnology argue successfully with an American farmer who points out: ‘I live in the environment you’re concerned about. I Iook after my farm in the environment you’re worried about. I bring up my children on crops you say are unsafe. Do you think I’d do anything to damage any of those?’ It’s very hard to look into the eye of the man growing the stuff and say he’s doing something to damage the land or people.

Why is the EU particularly important for U.S. soybean imports?
The EU is very, very influential around the world. Its legislation on biotechnology is being copied elsewhere. In Turkey, we saw the passage of a law last year that, in effect, bans the import of biotech crops unless they’re reviewed and approved by a new Turkish agency that has only just  been set up. Egypt, which was the first country 30 years ago to start developing its own biotech capabilities, is starting to review its laws pertaining to biotech crops. Kenya and Uganda are developing biotechnology, but they’ve been told (by prospective European officials and customers) that if you do this, you might lose your market with us. So what happens in the EU tends to reverberate around the world.

Next: How upcoming high-oleic soybeans may help biotechnology gain acceptance.