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Vetter say TTIP a “tall order” but she’s hopeful

The chief ag negotiator for the U.S. says it will be “a tall order” to get everything U.S. agriculture wants out of T-TIP negotiations which are going on now in New York, but she is hopeful.

Darci Vetter told farm broadcasters last week that’s because Europe has much higher ag tariffs than the U.S.,“Our market is relatively open. They enjoy good access to our market  for their agricultural products, particularly high-value products: wine, cheeses, processed ag products. But, we don’t enjoy the same thing in their market.”

And she says there are other issues – among them, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) barriers, “Their system of approval for biotech products that does not run in a transparent or predictable manner. Their refusal to allow perfectly safe pathogen reduction treatments in our meat production that prevents our exports of poultry, for example. We need to break through all of those.”

Vetter says the U.S. hopes to empower Europe’s food safety authority, “When it comes to the science, the U.S. and Europe make the same determination. We just need to make the political aspects of their process work in a much more predictable and timely way.”

Vetter says T-TIP is NOT likely to be taken up by this year’s Congress. Reports say Greenpeace, which is against T-TIP, has leaked secret documents of the deal.