Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources

Agricultural Management Committee

Vol. 4, No. 2 - June 2000

Assessing the Impact of the Biosafety Protocol Upon American Growers

Thomas P. Redick, Drew L. Kershen, and William K. Crispin

After four years of intense negotiations, the Conference of the Parties ("COP") to the Convention on Biological Diversity ("CBO") at an Extraordinary Session in Montreal approved a Biosafety Protocol ("Protocol") on January 29, 2000.  Article 28 of the CBD allows the adoption of protocols to the CBD as separate international agreements.  The Protocol provides minimum international regulatory standards for approval of the release of genetically modified organisms ("GMOs") - called living modified organisms ("LMOs") in the Protocol - into the environment.  If ratified by the 176 nation-members of the CBD, this Protocol creates a "bio-specific" set of rules for GMOs.  While the Protocol exempts commodities shipments from "advance informed agreement" requirements imposed on seed imports, it leaves nations free to extend their requirement of advance informed agreement to commodities if they see a scientific risk that requieres assessment.

This article provides a brief history of the negotiations and assesses the possible impact of the CBD on U.S. agriculture.  Given the potential for advance informed agreement to extend to commodities, creating problems with commingling of varieties not approved overseas, the Protocol could have an adverse impact on U.S. agricultural exports.

The United States and the biotech industry believe the World Trade Organization ("WTO") will continue to have the power to invalidate trade restrictions on GMOs that discriminate or lack scientific support.  Other nations, however, interpret the Protocol as mandating that the WTO allows nations to use a precautionary approach to GMO imports.  This could set up a confrontation at the WTO over standards like Directive 90/200 in the European Union ("EU"), which has held up approval of new GMOs, including those in commodities shipments that are unlikely to be released into the environment.  The U.S. has lost corn trade to the EU over the past two years due to commingling of unapproved-in-EU varieties with corn bound for export.

The battle to narrow the Protocol to exclude commodities from pre-market approval regulations began nearly five years ago.  In 1995 at a meeting of the Biotechnology Industry Organization ("BIO"), Val Giddings, then with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an observer for the United States to the negotiations, warned that the Protocol was a "train headed for a Volkwagen filled with $50 billion in U.S. agricultural assets."  Mr. Giddings is currently the vice-president of the Food and Agriculture Division of BIO.  He concurs with the U.S. delegation in declaring the negotiations a victory and expects the WTO to enforce the scientific requirements of GATT Article XX to require approval of new GMOs when mainstream scientists find them safe.  For the next two years, the details of documentation and approvals wiill be worked out.  The devil may be waiting in the details, and continued vigilance will be required if U.S. commodities exports are to proceed without disruption.