Global protocol on biosafety could hurt RP

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety could prove to be disadvantageous to developing nations like the Philippines which are likely to bear the added costs of trans-boundary shipments of genetically-modified organisms (GMO) or living modified organisms (LMO), an agriculture expert said.

"The Philippines‚ ratification if ever, of the Cartagena Protocol will bring in new agricultural trade standards and testing protocols, but until now, there are no clear parameters on who bears the costs of these additional expense. It could be the farmers, the producers, but it is likely that at the end of the day, it will be the consumers that will absorb this burden," said Raul Montemayor, a consultant for the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council.

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is an international agreement on biosafety and supplements the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The protocol makes clear that products from new technologies must be based on the precautionary principle and allow developing nations to balance public health against economic benefits. It will, for example, let countries ban imports of a genetically-modified product if they feel there is not enough scientific evidence the product is safe and requires exporters to label shipments containing genetically-altered commodities such as corn or cotton.

The biosafety protocol on commodity trade currently seeks to regulate all trans-boundary movements of LMO or GMO.

Montemayor noted that countries that want to maintain a GMO-free environment must abide by the standards of the protocol and install system changes in areas like the transport handling of products.

"The cost of doing these system changes will be borne by the importers and will eventually be passed on to consumers or it may be passed on to farmers. This will be the cost of protecting the local environment so we can’t help but apply the costs if we accede to the agreement," said Montemayor.

Montemayor explained that testing protocols under the Cartagena agreement will require assessments whether or not cargoes coming into the country contain LMOs and the percentage of each LMO variety present in the cargo.

He cited a case study done on US and Argentine maize exports wherein out of about 3,500 cargoes tested annually for LMO presence, the cost to contain, identify and quantify the LMO presence in cargoes will cost more than $7 million using a one-sample-per-cargo-test. A testing protocol using 20 samples per cargo will raise costs to as much as $152 million annually.

"On top of this, the benefits of the protocol are not even clear. But it looks like that the returns on the economy are not much," said Montemayor.

A quarantine on agricultural trade providing for similar protection is also currently provided under the World Trade Organization (WTO) system, to which the country is a member. The system, called Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), spells out how quarantine should be controlled in agricultural trade to protect human health and food safety.

Currently, the Cartagena Protocol has 130 country-signatories but major exporting countries like Australia, Canada, and the United States have not yet ratified it.

The decision whether or not to ratify the protocol is now pending at the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs chaired by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.