Mercosur Resolution MERCOSUR/GMC/RES. No. 23/29 (LLP Agreement to Reduce Trade Disruptions)

The Mercosur policy on low-level presence may serve as a model for APEC economies to manage low-level presence scenarios. No APEC economies are among the Mercosur full members; however, Chile and Peru are associate members and Mexico and New Zealand are observer states.

Mercosur (Mercado Común del Sur/ Southern Common Market), the South American trade bloc with full membership by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and very recently in 2024 joined by Bolivia, signed a resolution in 2019, MERCOSUR/GMC/RES. Nº 23/19 entitled “Mechanism To Decrease the Occurrence of Low-Level Presence (LLP) of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Member States”. This LLP policy includes regional risk assessment sharing and regional recommendation of LLP threshold levels, with a goal of reducing the risk of trade disruptions in the region.

The Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology (CBA) within Mercosur is central to the implementation of this policy.  Mercosur member states, when there is commercial authorization for food or feed use of GE products in the state, agree to share the authorization with the CBA within a specified timeframe, including a risk assessment and all information submitted by the applicant except information deemed confidential.  The CBA then considers the possibilities for LLP in the region and the risk assessment submitted by the member state.  The CBA prepares a report to recommend regional approval taking into account the defined maximum tolerance limits for each member state on a case-by-case basis.