Labeling, liability are points of contention with industry

WASHINGTON - Midwestern farmers and the biotech industry will be watching as negotiators from the United States and more than 100 other countries gather in Montreal today to set rules for trade in genetically modified products.

Five years after adopting the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety under the U.N. banner, countries are getting down to the difficult decisions of regulating global commerce from a powerful and controversial technology.

The debate during the five-day meeting, like creation of the protocol itself, will be driven by the desires of developing countries to have more control over the movement of genetically engineered products across their borders.

"Countries must have the choice in deciding which GMOs (genetically modified organisms) they want to let in," asserted Juan Lopez of Spain, a Friends of the Earth analyst who is making the case for developing countries.

Meanwhile, the United States and a handful of grain-exporting countries will try to deflect such sentiments while arguing that critical decisions over trade must be left to the World Trade Organization.

Unlike most of the rest of the world, the United States has not ratified the protocol. But American companies and exporters are bound by it, which is why the negotiations this week will be closely watched.

Countries are expected to clash over labeling and documentation of shipments of modified products and seeds and the extent to which segregation is required. Until September, the deadline for adopting the rules, shipments need only be identified by saying they "may contain" modified products.

Many developing countries, supported by environmental groups, argue for separate labeling that provides many details about the source of the materials and type of genetic engineering involved.

But the biotech industry is pushing for minimal documentation, citing the cost to shippers and farmers and the potential for confusion.

"Our position is that standard commercial shipping invoices provide adequate information," said Lisa Dry, spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industry Association in Washington.

Hamdallah Zedan, the Egyptian who serves as secretary of protocol, described the labeling issue as one of the most contentious that countries are facing in these negotiations.

"The debate centers on the tradeoffs between the usefulness of detailed information in the documentation in handling of GMOs and the costs of assembling such documentation," he said in a statement.

Negotiators also will debate how much genetically engineered material shipments will be able to contain and still be considered "GMO-free," a designation that brings a premium price in global markets.

Developing countries are pushing a liability system that would impose penalties in the event of environmental damage from genetically modified organisms.

Advocates of liability provisions note, for instance, that organic farmers now have no way to recoup their losses if their crops become contaminated with pollen from genetically engineered corn.

The biotech industry contends that no liability system is needed because a decade of plantings of engineered crops has proved that they are safe.

Harvey Glick, Monsanto's director of scientific affairs, is among the industry representatives who planned to travel to Canada for the negotiations.

Gary Niemeyer, who farms near Auburn, Ill., just south of Springfield, said farmers generally support a protocol, even though some worry about some of the rules.

"We need to keep it segregated, know where it is going, and know what percent (of GMOs) are in the shipments," Niemeyer said. He grows corn that is not genetically engineered and sells it in Indonesia for a premium.