The news from across the Atlantic this spring made it look like the European Union finally was getting around to a grudging acceptance of biotech crops. After six long years of harassment, obstruction, and denial, the continent’s bureaucrats at last approved the consumption of a specific kind of Bt corn.
Unfortunately for them--and for us--it may be a case of too little, too late.
Barely a month after European regulators voted to approve Bt-11 sweet corn, an important group of biotechnologists voted with their feet. Syngenta, one of the world’s leading agriculture companies, announced that it would move all of its work on genetically enhanced crops out of the United Kingdom and into the United States.
The decision affects about 130 jobs. The significance of the move is much greater than this relatively small figure suggests. Up until recently, the United Kingdom has been considered one of Europe’s more biotech-friendly countries. Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that his nation needs to lead Europe into the 21st century with agricultural technologies that the United States, Argentina, Canada, and others already have embraced.
And yet the overall climate in Britain and the rest of Europe has functioned like a withering drought on fertile cropland. Despite its advanced economies and scientific know-how, the European Union has refused to let biotech crops flourish. Now the Europeans are going to suffer brain drain, as some of their best jobs migrate to the United States and its sensible biotech policies.
“This is a sad retreat,” said Anthony Trewavas of Edinburgh University, in the International Herald Tribune. “Work in universities will probably cease as well.”
Destroying something is easier than rebuilding it, as Treswavas also noted: “Once teams are dispersed, it takes a long time to get things back together again.”
In other words, those high-tech jobs won’t return to Britain anytime soon. They may be gone for good--along with the whole biotech industry. In fact, German company BASF sent out a “warning signal” of its own this week, indicating they may also be moving their research and development out of Europe.
I’m happy for North Carolina, which will benefit immediately from Syngenta’s decision. But the long-term effects of Europe rejecting biotechnology won’t be happy for anyone. American farmers need foreign markets in order to survive--and they especially need foreign markets that aren’t closing themselves to cutting-edge technologies that boost our yields, reduce back-breaking labor, and preserve the environment.
Yet this is exactly what’s happening. In a separate action this spring, the European Union announced a new labeling regime for biotech foods. This decision was spurred by the United States complaining to the World Trade Organization that Europe’s de facto moratorium on biotech crop approvals was a crass violation of free-trade rules--a case of protectionism camouflaged as a concern over public-health risks.
The labeling requirements, however, impose a complicated set of demands that seem to adopt a different means of pursuing the same goal. The labels themselves are probably illegal under WTO guidelines. As presently written, they simply don’t make any scientific sense. There is no apparent rationale.
Consider this: Vegetable oil made with genetically enhanced canola or soy grown in the United States must have a label--think of it as a biohazard warning sticker--but cheese and wine made in France with genetically modified enzymes doesn’t have to carry one.
Wait a second: Did I say these labels had no rationale? I take that back. They do have a rationale, which is to privilege European products over American ones.
Even if Europe were to approve a big batch of biotech crops and rescind or revise its labeling requirements, it would still face serious problems. Its approval of Bt-11 was strikingly limited. It allows people to eat the sweet corn but doesn’t allow farmers to grow it. What’s more, the Europeans have imposed considerable legal obstacles to growing biotech crops. They have refused, for instance, to determine who (if anyone) will pay damages in the case of pollen drift. Questions like these need to have answers before people are willing to adopt new technologies.
The bottom line is that the Europeans really haven’t changed their tune on the central issue that divides them from many other farmers around the world.
“I am afraid that the Luddites have effectively won,” said Michael Wilson of the UK’s Warwick University.
I hope not but I’m afraid that he might be right--and when the Luddites win, everybody loses.
News 
The news from across the Atlantic this spring made it look like the European Union finally was getting around to a grudging acceptance of biotech crops. After six long years of harassment, obstruction, and denial, the continent’s bureaucrats at last approved the consumption of a specific kind of Bt corn.
