International Organizations

Radio Interviews

The Controversy Over Biotechnology in International Trade as Well as Food Aid
Brenda Curtis and Under Secretary of Agriculture J.B. Penn
USDA Radio News Line for Thursday, October 24, 2002

"The concern is that GMO's are becoming a trade issue and that should not be." Under Secretary of Agriculture J.B. Penn outlining the past weekend's Cairns Group trade talks in Bolivia. Penn commented on the current status of U.S. trade with China when it comes to biotech farm exports or GMO's. "The regulatory regime with respect to GMO's of the Chinese has been a concern, but we believe that we’ve made real progress there and that that won’t be an impediment to trade, especially our soybean trade." However, Penn said that this didn’t apply to the European Union. "They by their actions have actively encouraged African countries not to accept our food aid." Penn said the United States questioned the ethics of the EU when it tried to convince African nations not to accept food aid that contained biotech commodities. In Washington reporting for the Department of Agriculture, I’m Brenda Curtis.

"And we thought that was a terrible situation—when you have people starving, for people to be encouraging them not to accept food aid, when there is no known risk whatsoever, to be just beyond the pale. And we even argued several weeks ago, the U.S. Government, that this kind of behavior was beyond just trade and normal scientific arguments, but it moved into the ethical realm. It’s just not ethical to encourage starving people not to accept food because you might not like it, even though there’s no known health risk whatsoever."

"So we think we have a big educational job before us. We also have to look at the possibility of taking action against the EU for their refusal to restart the approval process. So we think we’ve got a lot of work in front us, but so far we think we have right on our side. That if you use sound science as the basis for evaluating genetically modified foods, there is no reason whatsoever to deny them."