ASA First Vice President Ray Gaesser is traveling on a biotech outreach mission in Brussels this week to meet with Members of the European Parliament and other government officials. He’ll also travel to Berlin to attend the International Green Week fair, the world’s largest food and agriculture fair, and to meet with industry stakeholders and government officials.

The focus of Gaesser’s meetings during this trip is biotechnology adoption and acceptance and the need for long-term solutions to the European Union’s (EU) policies on asynchronous approvals; the need for a practical low level presence threshold of EU-unapproved biotech events; and U.S. concerns regarding potential damage to trade should the EU adopt new implementing laws on biotech food and feed authorizations.

Those meeting with Gaesser include: individuals from groups representing EU farmers, farm cooperatives, feed and biotech industries, and German oil crushers and food and feed industries.

Multiple EU policies hinder the importation and use of biotech crops from the U.S., including delays in approvals of new biotech traits, despite positive assessments by the European Food Safety Authority; commercially infeasible requirements on biotech content in food products; and state-by-state restrictions on biotech imports.

ASA, through its Biotech Working Group and biotech outreach missions, is continuing to work on behalf of the soybean industry and biotech providers to educate regulatory officials about the safety and importance of new technologies for farmers to more effectively produce more on each acre.