Crop Biotechnology News

The European Union's high court ruled Tuesday that Italy and other EU governments can temporarily ban genetically modified foods while they examine health risks, but must provide "detailed grounds," not general fears, to do so.

The decision by the European Court of Justice was another blow for biotech companies trying to sell genetically modified products to a skeptical Europe. The United States, Canada and Argentina are challenging an EU moratorium on such products at the World Trade Organization.

But it was welcomed by environmentalists opposed to biotech farming.

"The court recognizes that member states have a right to protect consumers' health, a right that clearly prevails over the freedom-of-trade principle," Roberto della Seta, a spokesman for Italian environmental group Legambiente, told the ANSA news agency.

Industry groups took heart from the court's insistence on a solid justification for even a temporary ban, although the judges left the question of how much evidence is enough for national courts to decide.

"We hope that this sets the basis for making more clarity," said Adeline Farrelly, spokeswoman for Europabio, which represents the biotech industry in Brussels.

"It does spell out that whatever the evidence required, it cannot be purely circumstantial or supposition," she said. "It can't just simply be a question of personal views."

The Luxembourg-based court was asked to review a decision by Rome in August 2000 to temporarily ban flour used in animal feed that came from genetically modified corn produced by Monsanto Europe S.A., Syngenta AG and Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc.

In a boost for the companies, the judges said a country cannot ban a product that has been declared "substantially equivalent" to the traditional version under EU rules merely because biotech residues remain.

But it said an EU nation "can as a preventive measure ... temporarily restrict or suspend the marketing of those foods in its territory" if there is a demonstrated risk to human health.

"The risk must not be purely hypothetical or be founded on mere suppositions which are not yet verified," it added. "The state must base its action on detailed grounds and not on reasons of a general nature."

The case now goes back to an Italian court, where health authorities would have to show that residues of transgenic proteins in the corn flour pose a health risk.

In a statement, Monsanto welcomed the ruling and expressed confidence in final victory, noting that an Italian scientific institute in 2000 found no evidence of health risks.

There was no immediate comment from Rome, which had cited differing opinions for its initial decree.

U.S. farmers say the EU moratorium has cost them $300 million in lost sales annually of bioengineered corn.

Forty percent of the 79.1 million acres of corn grown this year in the United States is genetically altered. In Europe, only 62,000 acres are being grown commercially, all in Spain.

The EU recently enacted new rules to end a 5-year moratorium on approving new biotech products. However, U.S. farm groups object that the new EU labels will be expensive and cumbersome to implement, violate trade rules and will scare consumers unnecessarily.

But even in the United States newer biotech crops, such as herbicide-resistant sugar beets or fungal-resistant potatoes, have found few growers due to lack of markets, experts said Tuesday.

Food companies have been scared off by negative publicity and lawsuits surrounding episodes like that three years ago in the United States, when corn not approved for human consumption found its way into the food supply, Leonard Gianessi, a U.S. government-supported researcher, told reporters in Brussels.

"It's mainly marketing concerns," he said. "They're worried about attacks against their brand name."