Genetically modified food -- the Luddites triumphant

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: There is no scientific evidence -- none -- that eating genetically modified food hurts anyone. But the noisy biotech know-nothings of Europe, combined with richly coddled European farmers, are determined to keep American GM foods off the Continent.
If one way won't work, they'll try another. Their latest tactic is infuriating, and the American government should challenge it immediately.
Since 1998, the European Union has refused to approve the import of new biotech foods. Now that the American government has finally filed a formal complaint, it's pretty clear that the World Trade Organization is going to toss that ban out the window.
So since they can't ban our food, the Europeans now plan to hog-tie our food exports in ridiculous red tape. If a little American soybeans or GM corn make it to European supermarkets anyway, the EU will discourage consumers with labeling (although we don't think labeling is as big a deal as the biotech companies do).
Massive paper trail
The European Parliament, which rides in the pocket of farm lobbyists, passed the projectionist legislation Wednesday. It requires U.S. imports to include a paper trail of genetic history going all the way back to the farm. That's impossible, since crops from hundreds of farms are mixed together before they are loaded on ships or sent to the factory.
Any product containing 0.9 percent GM food would have to be bear a label warning, "This product is produced from genetically modified organisms." That's a sale-killer among a European public that's been frightened with misinformation about "Frankenfoods."
Worse, the labeling would apply to GM products that were approved for Europe before the 1998 ban. Some supermarket chains say they'll yank U.S. cooking oil from their shelves if labels are required. Biotech opponents are pushing European meat packers to shun animals fed with American GM soybeans.
It's protectionism
This is protectionism masquerading as consumerism. It's designed to keep American competition out.
Europe already spends $50 billion a year subsidizing its farmers. That's two and a half times the amount spent by the United States, although the economies are similar in size. The European subsidy system was adjusted recently. But it still stimulates overproduction, then subsidizes the price of European agricultural products sold on world markets. The losers are poor farmers in the Third World, who must compete with cheap subsidized exports. The poor lose again when Europe's phobia against GM crops make Third World countries reluctant to plant them, even though they could raise crop yields.