AGRICULTURE EXPORTERS APPLAUD BUSH’s CASE AGAINST EU

AGRICULTURE EXPORTERS APPLAUD BUSHÆS CASE AGAINST EU    The American Farm Bureau Federation backs the Bush administration’s decision to pursue a case in the World Trade Organization against the European Union’s five-year-old moratorium on new approvals of biotech crops.
   Farm Bureau president Bob Stallman said a formal dispute settlement proceedings under the WTO sends “a strong message to farmers that the U.S. government will fight for agriculture’s trading rights.”
   Further upset to U.S. agriculture exporters came when the EU recently proposed to use labeling and traceability rules to replace the moratorium.
   “We believe that a WTO decision, which most experts expect to be in favor of the United States, is the only reasonable remedy available to U.S. growers — to either lift the moratorium or impose retaliatory tariffs on EU products imported into the United States,” Stallman said.
   Since the implementation of the EU’s biotech crop moratorium in October 1998, the Farm Bureau claims U.S. corn exporters lost about $300 million a year in sales to Europe.
   About one-third of the U.S. corn crop is genetically modified, including about 70 percent of the cotton crop and 75 percent of the soybean crop, the Farm Bureau said.