We cannot complain when some consumers insist on food labelling that promises products are free from GMOs. Today’s customers are found across the world, whether at home or in Europe. This means successful farm businessmen cater to every whim without whining to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as did U.S. farmers in the late nineties.

Backed by Washington, they sought to force the European Union (EU) to accept hormone-treated beef. France rallied its allies, all of whom wished to protect their domestic beef industry as well as "protecting" the health of consumers. Technically, the EU lost the battle but won strong public support for counter measures, and paid the WTO-imposed fine, a whopping $100 million a year.

North America’s cattlemen were jubilant. That was last November before reality proved to be like the victory gained by King Pyrrhus of Epirus in 279 BC. When surveying the field after an horrendously bloody battle, he slowly realized his Roman enemies were the actual victors. They had wisely retreated only to return later in fearsome strength. Hence the term: Pyrrhic victory.

How can the EU afford to pay the penalty? Simple. Its moneymen figured that with agriculture receiving $95 billion a year from the treasury, Brussels could afford the WTO’s $100 million with a blink of an eyelash, little more than 0.10 per cent of annual spending. Mere pocket change. Besides protecting local beef, the principle could be used to ban all biotech imports from the U.S., Canada and Ukraine, which hoped to export 15 million tonnes of wheat and corn by 2005.

Were U.S. farmers wise when placing exports in the GMO basket? First, yearly corn exports to Europe plummeted from US$190 million in 1997 to $1.3million in 2001. Secondly, corn gluten export sales, a spin-off from ethanol making used for cattle feed, dropped more than $200 million. It seems Europe’s supermart shoppers shy away from foodstuffs thought to have been treated with GMOs.

Strangely, American farm groups now press Washington to fight EU anti-biotech labeling on the grounds it is a disguised non-tariff trade barrier. So what? While U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and slick EU and WTO bureaucrats waste years wrangling over what constitutes unfair wording, traditional markets are lost to competition.

The answer for Ottawa, anyway, is to establish strong GMO labelling rules and to offer customers the option of GMO or non-GMO products. This alone would prove the customer is right even when she may be wrong.