Securing the Asia-Pacific's food supply

Embracing agricultural biotechnology is critical to meeting the growing food and nutrition demands of people in the Asia-Pacific.

This was the view of experts attending a two-day APEC Roundtable on Low Level Presence of Products of Agricultural Biotechnology in Food, held in Sapporo from 27-28 May. During the Roundtable, government food regulators, scientists, academics and biotech industry representatives discussed how the harmonisation of APEC member economies' policies and rules on bio-engineered plants could help increase the food supply.

"The agricultural biotechnology sector has the potential to transform agriculture through the development of pest, drought and salinity resistant and nutritionally enhanced crops," said Dr Julian Adams, Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. "This is crucial as a growing population, rapid urbanisation and worldwide dietary trend changes, for example increased consumption of meat, mean that at current food production levels, demand will likely outpace supply."

"Transgenic crops also play an important role in protecting the environment and improving the sustainability of agricultural production," explained Dr Adams.

The recent decimation of papaya plantations in Peru (an APEC member) by the ring spot virus was cited as an example. This is driving farmers to push further into the Amazon rainforest to find virus-free areas for planting. Transgenic papaya plants that are resistant to the virus have already been developed and extensively grown for many years in the United States, and have been approved in Japan. The cultivation of such plants in Peru would reduce the risk of more forest incursions.

But as Dr Adams underscores, "To increase cultivation of and trade in these crops we need to develop regulatory frameworks that guarantee food safety, strengthen public confidence and ensure transparency between trading partners".

The Roundtable therefore focused specifically on steps that could be taken to align APEC members' policies for dealing with low level presence (LLP) of genetically engineered plant materials in food products. LLP refers to the unintentional or inadvertent mixing of a grain commodity with small, insignificant quantities of another - in this context transgenic - variety of grain. It occurs as an unavoidable consequence of moving crops through the supply chain from farmer to consumer.

APEC members' differing ways of dealing with LLP can be a significant barrier to trade. Crops approved in one economy may not be approved in another, or approvals can take disparate time frames in different economies. Economies' risk assessments can be based on dissimilar data and inputs, and different LLP thresholds and testing protocols may apply. Exporters and importers are therefore subject to a variety of uncertainties and risks; and these risks increase the prices that ultimately must be paid by consumers.

"Agricultural Biotechnology is here to stay and economies that don't manage it effectively will risk losing access to an adequate food supply and can face significant volatility in food prices," said Dr Randal Giroux from the International Grain Trade Coalition.

To date around 80 GM agricultural products have been approved for commercialisation worldwide and approximately half are under cultivation. However, in some staple crops such as soybeans the majority of plantings are now GM: 95 percent in the United States, 90 percent in Canada and 65 percent in Australia (all APEC members). Moreover, the number of GM traits in commercial crops is expected to increase to almost 130 worldwide by 2015 (Joint Research Centre, European Commission).

Jaime Piçarra, from the European Feed Manufacturers' Federation (FEFAC), provided a real-life example of the costs and implications of banning GM livestock feed in Europe: "The EU's ban on GM corngluten and DDGS livestock feed saw imports fall from six million tons in 1999 to 0.3 million tons in 2009. This meant that the EU had to substitute GM feed imports with higher-priced imports and expensive EU-produced grains. It even forced farmers to reduce herd sizes because of the unavailability of affordable feed. In all, the added cost to EU livestock farmers is estimated to have totalled US$5 billion."

This has led to a reassessment by the EU of its regulations for both animal feed and food and, as Dr Giroux explains, highlights why governments in the Asia-Pacific must be proactive: "Given increasing demands on the global agricultural supply chain the goal must be to minimise the disruption to trade of agricultural biotechnology policy".

With this in mind, attendees discussed what realistic steps APEC members can take to align their policies on GM agricultural products. Suggestions included that members could adopt common definitions, units of measurement and data requirements, and develop a common format for commercialisation applications for GM crops. This would speed up the consideration process and reduce uncertainties, but it would not preclude inpidual economies from making their own independent risk assessments.

Adopting the consensus documents of international expert groups - for example the Codex Alimentarius LLP Annex - was also discussed as a practical approach for APEC members. The Codex is a collection of internationally recognised standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations relating to foods, food production and food safety.¹ This would help reduce disparities in the treatment of food products by trading partners that lead to trade disruptions.

To help members better understand existing practices in the region, government regulators shared their current approaches to LLP. The Philippines outlined how it has implemented guidelines for LLP policy based on the Codex LLP Annex. Australia discussed how it manages food safety incidents, including LLP in food incidents; and the United States explained how it assesses food safety during occurrences of LLP.

The Roundtable's deliberations and conclusions will be reported back to APEC's High Level Policy Dialogue on Agricultural Biotechnology (HLPDAB) - which organised the event with the support of the APEC Technical Assistance and Training Facility - when it meets on the 29th of May in Sapporo.

The HLPDAB is a forum for policy makers to develop regulatory frameworks, facilitate technology transfer, encourage investment and strengthen public confidence regarding biotechnology in order to increase agricultural productivity and protect the region's environment. The ultimate objective is to promote food security in the Asia-Pacific region.

The issues of food security will be further considered at the Ministerial level in October this year, when APEC holds its first-ever Ministerial Meeting on Food Security.