This report investigates the concern (highlighted in the Cabinet Office's 2008 Food Matters report) that the rate of EU approvals for GM products, coupled with the absence of any tolerance for low levels of unauthorised GM material, could prejudice UK food and feed imports.
This is because major commodity exporting countries that are already significant GM producers (USA, Brazil, Argentina) might authorise and cultivate new types of GM crop before they are cleared for EU import.
Where a non-EU authorised GM crop is grown, there is potential for an adventitious presence of this crop to arise which may disrupt imports of that commodity from the country concerned, both non-GM (conventional) and EU-approved GM varieties.
The report highlights the hierarchy of dependence on soy of different livestock types: Of the total amount of soybean meal used for feed in the UK, most is used by the poultry sector (42%), followed by the pig sector (28%) and the cattle sector (19%).
Defra has also published these accompanying reports:
- What is the potential to replace imported soya, maize and maize by-products with other feeds in livestock diets? (paper by ADAS Ltd)
- Assessing the impact of GM animal feed restrictions in the UK/EU livestock sectors (paper by George Philippidis)
- GM Analysis Project, Supply Chain Segregation, Literature Review (paper by Promar International)
- GM Analysis Project, Segregation of Supply Chain (paper by Promar International)
- Summary of modelling work for Defra feed import project (paper by Defra)
- Summary of work on farm-level impacts for Defra feed import project (paper by Defra)
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