Low Level Presences (LLPs)

Global trade in agricultural commodities contributes in enhancing food security worldwide. Trade enables the movement of agricultural commodities from areas of surplus to areas of deficit at sustainable and affordable prices. Being biotech crops cultivated and traded globally, enhanced harmonization and synchronization of GM polices between exporting and importing countries are needed.

Low Level Presence of GMOs is one of the major trade barriers: it reduces the predictability of trade flows and prevents global trade from operating efficiently.

However the European Union’s management of GMOs matters is somehow conservative as it has failed to address these issues with a comprehensive and scientifically sound Low Level Presence policy. This policy’s shortcoming has great negative consequences on the global and European food security as well as on the economic sustainability of business operators.

The European Union is not self-sufficient, especially in vegetable proteins and oils hence it has to rely on imports to cover the food and feed industry demand. Imports are a crucial complement to the EU raw material supply: though critical for the European market, imports remain under threat caused by a possible unintentional and technically unavoidable presence of the traces of GM events that have not been authorized in the EU but have already been safety assessed and authorized in the exporting countries.

Europe risks finding itself in an increasingly isolated position compared to the rest of the world which implements in due time adequate policies responding to the evolution of modern agriculture and correspondent trading patterns.