Leaders from MAIZALL, the international alliance for maize, were in Washington this week for discussions with senior U.S. officials from the Department of Agriculture, State Department and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative regarding ongoing cooperation with the governments of Argentina and Brazil on market access for crops derived from biotechnology. 

“MAIZALL was established because producers in the United States, Argentina and Brazil — the three major corn exporting countries of the Americas — recognized they shared some common concerns,â€� said Julius Schaaf, the Iowa farmer who serves as U.S. Grains Council past chairman and MAIZALL’s first president.

MAIZALL is a partnership of four organizations in three countries: the Council and the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) in the United States, ABRAMHILO in Brazil and MAISAR in Argentina. While the three countries are vigorous competitors in world markets, producers in all three are committed to trade, modern agricultural technology and improved market access.

In their meetings this week with U.S. officials, the MAIZALL group focused especially on challenges in China and the European Union affecting producers in the corn exporting countries and on the importance of intergovernmental dialogues to encourage development of effective policies for managing low level presence (LLP) of as-yet unapproved biotech traits.

“Without workable LLP policies, farmers lose no matter where they are from,� Schaaf said. “Either we lose access to beneficial technologies that improve our economic and environmental sustainability, or we risk losing access to markets because of the presence of trace levels of an event. This serves no one’s interest.�

In 2015, MAIZALL will continue its outreach to receptive pro-technology groups in the EU. The group is also looking toward ongoing discussions with Chinese and Korean officials and will continue to advocate regulatory harmonization on biotech events among the Americas.