VZCZCXRO0218
RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ RUEHROV
DE RUEHWR #1114/01 2680746
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 240746Z SEP 08
FM AMEMBASSY WARSAW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7054
RUEHRC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHDC
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
INFO RUEHKW/AMCONSUL KRAKOW 2164
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 WARSAW 001114 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE PASS ELECTRONICALLY TO USTR JMURPHY, MCLARKSON 
STATE FOR EUR/CE 
STATE FOR EEB/TPP/ABT/BTT FINN 
USDA FOR FAS/OSTA MHENNEY, LJONES; FAS/OFSO DYOUNG 
USDA FOR FAS/OCRA/RCURTIS, DSEIDBAND 
BRUSSELS PASS AG MINISTER COUNSELOR; 
EUROPEAN POSTS FOR AGR/ECON 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAGR ECON ETRD TBIO PGOV PL
SUBJECT:   POLAND AG BIOTECHNOLOGY PROGRESS 
 
REF:  Krakow 095 
 
WARSAW 00001114  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Polish debate on biotechnology is heating up, 
with nudging from the Embassy.  From April to September, an industry 
coalition supporting biotech has coalesced, and we are starting to 
see local leaders following their constituents in countering 
negative propaganda and demanding access to the biotechnologies 
Polish farmers need to be competitive.  Nevertheless, biotech 
opponents still have the upper hand, and the support of the Ministry 
of Environment.  The next big test will be a virulently anti-biotech 
bill proposed by the Ministry that the Sejm will consider this fall. 
 Nevertheless, the characteristic Polish resolve to push ahead 
despite obstacles means today the pro-GM movement finally has legs 
to walk on.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) Embassy officers have conducted demarches, worked with the 
press, connected idea salesmen, and offered analysis.  Primarily 
supported by USDA's Emerging Markets Program, but with some input 
from State's Biotech Outreach Funds the mission in Warsaw has hosted 
a farmer from Spain, Jose Luis Romeo (May 2008); farmers from Iowa, 
Varel Bailey and Jill Euken (June 2008), Czech Farmer Vitezslav 
Navratil (Sept 2008), representatives of the American Soybean 
Association, (Oct. 2007, Feb 2008, and Sept 2008); and held seminars 
with regional leaders in Poznan, Opole, and nearby Warsaw for crowds 
of up to 200.  Ag Counselor drove 5000 miles meeting regional 
political officials, academics, media, local associations, and 
producers. 
 
¶3.  (U)  Embassy Public Affairs, USDA Warsaw, and Consulate Krakow 
currently are arranging to host author and Professor Alan McHughen 
of the University of California, Riverside, in Wroclaw and Warsaw in 
October.  Dr. McHughen's book, Pandora's Food Basket, has been 
translated in Polish with an altered title, Genetically Modified 
Foods: What Consumers Need to Know.  Emboffs are excited about the 
visit, as Dr. McHughen is credible with his willingness to accept 
and discuss some technology downsides.  McHughen's description of 
the positive attributes of biotechnology outweigh his depiction of 
the negatives. 
 
¶4. (U) In traveling Poland it is clear that the Embassy is stepping 
in where the Government of Poland is offering negative, biased, and 
sometimes anti-American statements on the technology, primarily from 
the Ministry of Environment.   The Ministry's Center for 
Environmental Information financed a publication from Professor 
Stanislaw Wiackowski, labeling USDA, FDA, and EPA "indolent" and the 
President of the United States corrupt.  It was a 50 page screed 
claiming biotechnology causes hunger in India and cancer in rats. 
Embassy complaints about lack of balance to the Ministry have not 
elicited a response.  More damaging, the Ministry has conducted six 
seminars across Poland, over the same time frame of embassy 
activities, that specified biotechnology negatives.  Greenpeace, 
Friends of the Earth, and Dr. Wiackowski were all speakers.  These 
seminars were financed with public Polish and EU funds. 
 
¶5. (U) The Ministry of Environment has drafted a GM cultivation law 
that represents a farce.  The draft law, at 145 pages, contacts 
report is the longest draft law written in Polish history. The law 
envisions that individual regions may declare themselves GM free. 
If a farmer then plants GM they face jail time.  Even if a regional 
legislature votes to plant GM, they can be overruled by the local 
provincial governor (wojewod), representing the national government. 
 Before planting, the law requires producers to seek permission from 
neighbors, post bonds for damages, and conduct exhaustive 
recordkeeping.  Though the law was 145 pages, it did not include 
provisions for insect refuges or barriers from organic crops.  The 
draft states that regulatory issues like these will be issued by the 
Environment Ministry later.  The administrative risk is so high, 
that producers say they will not plant under this law. 
 
¶6.  (U) Each law in Poland must be accompanied by a justification 
for its passage.  The justification of the cultivation law plainly 
states the law is designed to prevent GM crops from being planted. 
The Ministry received negative comments from producers, many 
accompanied by detailed analysis about how the law conflicts with EU 
mandates.  Scientists were outraged at the provisions of the law 
regulating their activities.  Presently, the Ministry of Environment 
does not approve animal feed tests and open field crop trials, 
despite the scientific panels at the Ministry that support these 
requests.  The draft imagines an even stricter regime.  Worrisome 
 
WARSAW 00001114  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
for the future, the draft includes provisions that are interpreted 
by some contacts to mean animal clones will be considered 
genetically modified, and thus under the regulation of the Ministry 
of Environment.  With its comment period over, the Ministry 
announced it will be working on sending the draft to Parliament on 
September 28.  It will need the support of the Ministries of 
Agriculture and Economy.  Those ministries are more positive on the 
technology, but their views are unlikely to overcome the strong 
negative views put forward by the environmental movement. 
 
¶7. (U) There is reason for optimism.  A pro biotech coalition is 
active.  In partnership with the seed industry, a Coalition for 
Modern Farming is pushing local governments to do more to educate 
and defend them.  Biotechnology is at the core of the survivability 
of Polish agriculture.  The nation has a disastrous outbreak of the 
European Corn Borer, which destroys $400 million worth of the corn 
crop annually, losses that could easily be prevented by Mon 810 Bt 
corn, available for sale.  Polish producers have planted 3,000 
hectares, and some trade rumors indicate the figure may be as high 
at 5,000 hectares with Bt corn, bought in neighboring Czech 
Republic.  Producers realize they must cut costs and worry about 
predictions of rising input prices and falling commodity prices. 
They worry as well about the new paradigm in the Polish farm 
economy: it has become a net pork importer and its domestic hog 
population is at a 23 year low.  Poland is an inefficient producer 
of pork, and has open borders with more efficient 
vertically-integrated Western European suppliers. 
 
¶8. (SBU) The Embassy and USDA are stepping in to provide better 
biotechnology information and contacts to regional leaders who are 
willing to work for cultivation and acceptance of U.S. varieties in 
animal feeds.   Last week, Ag Counselor traveled to Opole with 
Polish scientists and producers from the Mazowiecki region near 
Warsaw.  Opole dedicated its annual Corn Day exhibition to a 
conference promoting biotechnology.  Then, after the formal 
conference concluded, the region's agricultural leaders and elected 
regional leaders retired with experts to the office of the 
agricultural extension service leader to hear the presentations 
again and debate them.  The Mazowiecki region agricultural chamber 
passed a resolution promoting biotechnology in July, after the visit 
of Ag Counselor and Iowa speakers in June.  Mazowiecki-Opole regions 
are in an alliance for biotech and Opole leaders may follow with 
their own pro-biotech position shortly. 
 
---------------- 
OPOLE IS THE KEY 
---------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The Polish characteristic of personal opposition in tough 
circumstances helps.  Poles are fiercely independent and stand up 
for their beliefs.  This has so far benefitted the anti-GM movement, 
but facing farm losses, competition from crops abroad, and the 
hypocrisy of how Polish consumers eat GM crops produced elsewhere, 
producers and scientists are working together for biotechnology. 
Accompanying Ag Counselor to Opole was Dr. Lucjan Szponar, former 
head of the Polish Nutrition Institute, now retired;  Dr. Roman 
Warzecha, of the Ag Ministry's Plant Breeding Station near Warsaw, 
and Tadeusz Szymanczak, former parliamentarian and corn farmer.  Met 
in Opole by a Czech farmer, Vitezslav Navratil, the speakers had an 
open forum to present their views.  Mr. Navratil's participation was 
organized by USDA Embassy Prague Ag Specialist.  Local TV and print 
press, including with Ag Counselor, was overwhelmingly positive. 
Important for the future, Opole is the home region of Sejm 
Agricultural Committee chief, Leszek Korzionowski.  A corn 
bioethanol plant will move into production in April 2009 in Opole, 
stoking demand for corn.  The plant will eat 350,000 tons of corn, 
while Poland produces just 1.7 million tons now and will import. 
Recovering crop losses from the corn borer would provide needed 
feedstock for the plant. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Embassy's Polish biotechnology experts have been invited 
to speak again at a farm group convention near Krakow in October, 
with help from Consulate Krakow.  Malopolski has fresh interest in 
the technology, see reftel. 
ASHE