MR. KOEPKE: That's pretty good. Thank you.

MR. ALLBEE: I would ask you to summarize when the bell rings.

MR. KOEPKE: All right. Sure.

Hello. My name is Detlev Koepke. Thanks for the opportunity of calling me to speak. I am a Professor of History at the Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts and a former Board member of Harvest Cooperative Supermarkets in Boston, Massachusetts and the founder of Cooperative Market in Rosinol.

I want to make two comments on WTO policies. First has to do, once again, with the U.S. support of genetically engineered foods. I strongly support a moratorium on U.S. support of genetically engineered foods until mandatory testing is done to assure the long-term safety of these foods, which has not been done, so that consumers can make informed decisions about whether to buy them or not. I am convinced that the genetic engineering will turn out to be the thalidomide and DES of the next decade; products that had original government approval and later turned out to be hazardous to human health. The USDA should not be in the business of promoting foods that have not been adequately tested. GE foods have the following dangers:

Dr. Pusztai's research at the Rowett Institute in England indicate compromised immune systems and deterioration of internal organs in rats fed genetically engineered potatoes.

Cornell University studies show that 50 percent of Monarch butterflies died after eating wind-borne pollen from genetically engineered corn.

Thirty-seven people died from eating genetically engineered triptophan supplements in 1989 and 1500 were permanently disabled.

The pesticide Roundup used on genetically engineered crops has caused severe deformities in amphibians. And the effects on farmers. Genetically engineered crops are unstable. They have led to lower yield as well as outright crop failures. The American South cotton farmers have lost their entire Bt cotton crops, and 500 farmers in India have committed suicide because of their failure of GE crops. The GE foods have not lived up to the claims of their manufacturers for increased yields and profits.

Economic effects. Rather than increasing American exports as promised, GE foods have had the opposite effects. In 1996, as you well know, the European Commission voted to ban the importation of unlabeled GE American corn crops. As of July 1997, GE crops could be imported only if labelled.

Austria and Luxemburg have banned any importation of GE grain. Switzerland has passed laws stating that all food products containing GE soybeans must be labelled. Denmark bans all unlabelled GE products from importation. Norway has banned all GE products that could cause resistance to antibiotics.

Bovine growth hormone has been banned by all Western European countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Israel. GE foods are making American exports less competitive, not more competitive. They are shutting out American agricultural products from hitherto profitable markets. As the percentage of unlabeled GE foods spreads in American products, other countries will increase their bans. Even if WTO succeeds in forcing Europeans to accept American products, European and other consumers will refuse to buy them. The same reaction is beginning to happen in America as well as consumers become more educated. Hundreds of thousands of signatures have been gathered on a petition for the FDA to require mandatory labelling of GE foods. The more the U.S. GNP depends on biotechnology, the greater the negative consequences will be. This is a very high price to pay for untested and unstable technology. There should be a moratorium until they are adequately tested. And yet there is a growing market for organic foods and American farmers have not taken advantage, have not pushed them for it.

My second comment has to do with recent WTO rulings imposing trade sanctions on the European community for refusing to buy hormone treated American meat and for special trade relationships with Carribean banana producers to the exclusion of Chiquita. There are many good health reasons why the Europeans consider the addition of hormones to meat to be a public health hazard. No adequate studies have been undertaken by the USDA to disprove these concerns. Governments have a right to safeguard the health of consumers and the WTO should not be in the business of overriding these legitimate concerns for the economic interest of certain producers.

Why cannot American producers sell meat to Europeans that is not treated with hormones? Is not free enterprise a system that gives the customer what he or she wants?

MR. ALLBEE: Please summarize.

MR. KOEPKE: Yes. Certainly.

I favor USDA support of farmers to produce hormone-free export beef. Does the USDA really want the same thing to happen to American meat exports that happened to British beef after the outbreak of mad cow disease, which is a permanent stigma? I don't think that's doing American exporters a favor.

I think, in short, American farmers can profit more from exporting clean, safe foods than from forcing other countries to accept unsafe and untested foods.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MR. SCHUMACHER: Are you from Massachusetts? Drive up this morning?

MR. KOEPKE: We drove up yesterday. Yes.

MR. SCHUMACHER: Two points of clarification. On the hormone bF issue, we do sell a hormone-free beef in Europe. They have also banded that too. There's a lot of issues on beef in Europe that we could spend the entire day on the issue. They won't accept our beef, hormone beef or the hormone-free. They have banned both now, which makes it -- all we wanted to do was to give the European consumers a choice of eating our beef in Europe just as the Europeans do when they come to this country. They can -- Burlington, Boston, New York or Philadelphia, they have a choice. And they can eat our beef. It's all we ask the Europeans to do is to give their consumers the same choice, organic food in this country, organic food in their country. We agreed that we would indicate that is a product of American farms. We do have a choice. Europeans deem to ban both.

On the second issue on the testing which you raise, I'll just again read the few sentences of the Secretary's speech last week. I'm quoting, "Finally, two different parts, I've established that the Secretary's Advisory Committee on agriculture biotechnology should be comprised of a cross section of 25 percent of government, academia, production agriculture companies, environmental and consumer groups. The Committee will hold its first meeting in the fall, will provide me," Secretary Glickman, "with advice on a broad range of issues related to agriculture biotechnology and maintaining a flexible policy to be involved in biotechnology."

So, the Secretary, I think, is stepping up to the front and providing a great deal of leadership on this issue in the future. But I think notwithstanding the terms of the speech, he continues to caution, though, is to be cautious in the future. As President Kennedy said, we should not let our fears -- with our hopes. We should be very hopeful.

Several weeks ago I had this advisory committee look at all this very, very carefully from a number of issues. But again, the Europeans have been very restrictive not only on the beef issue, but they have been, as Paul said, not used -- in simple science -- to be compatible with the non-transparent prices.

I really appreciate you coming up and providing this. We look forward to having your testimony on the record.

MR. KOEPKE: What percentage of American exports are actually hormone-free beef?

MR. SCHUMACHER: They banned beef in the last 10 years, so -- and we didn't have hormone-free. I think we had a quota of something like 20,000 tons of beef, where we managed about 12 to 13,000 tons of hormone- free beef to Europe. And they banned that as well.

MR. KOEPKE: Out of a grand total of how many tons?

MR. SCHUMACHER: 20,000. That is the grand total of non-hormone that we are allowed to export. There are protections. Any friends in the European Union?

MR. KOEPKE: That's a small percentage.

MR. SCHUMACHER: Granted. Hormone-free or hormone beef, 20,000 tons. And we try to fill that with hormone-free beef to about 10 or 12,000 tons. Now it's beginning to grow until they again ban that as well. So, we are -- the friendly Europeans -- milk and heavy export subsidies, but the beef is protected.

Thank you very much.

MR. KOEPKE: Thank you. Thanks for these hearings.