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In this article we will discuss about the significances of GM in food production and crops.
The majority of commercially available crops have an agronomic advantage like herbicide tolerance or insect resistance. These traits offer major benefits to the farmer. However, there are indirect benefits to the consumer from these traits: GM crops have shown to contribute to significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices.
This reduction results from decreased fuel use, about 1.8 billion litres in the past nine years, and additional soil carbon sequestration because of reduced ploughing or improved conservation tillage associated with biotech crops. In 2004, this reduction was equivalent to eliminating more than 10 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Controversies surrounding GM foods and crops commonly focus on human and environmental safety, labelling and consumer choice, intellectual property rights, ethics, food security, poverty reduction, and environmental conservation.
Dangerous Potato:
Although no major health hazards have come to light since GM food was introduced 12 years ago, some fear for the long term health risks which GM could pose, or that the risks of GM have not yet been adequately investigated. In August 1998 widespread concern, especially in Europe, was sparked by remarks by nutrition researcher, Dr Arpad Pusztai, regarding some of his research into the safety of GM foods.
Pusztai claimed his experiments showed that rats fed on genetically modified potatoes had suffered serious damage to their immune systems and shown stunted growth. He was criticised by leading British politicians, the majority of scientific peers with expertise in the area and by the GM companies in a television interview, preceded the scientific publication of his results.
When his studies were finally published in The Lancet, no evidence of stunted growth or damage to immune system was substantiated. The Royal Society’s review of the Pusztai data led to the conclusion that the study “is flawed in many aspects of design, execution, and analysis and that no conclusion should be drawn from it”.
Alternate view of Pusztai, supported by the evidence available. The conclusion of the potato feeding study were attacked by the biotech’s but showed much evidence of damage.
The rats fed on the GE potatoes suffered substantial damage to their immune systems, plus abnormal weight loss in various organs, including the brain, testicles and liver. Some also had abnormal growth in their intestinal cells, which could indicate a prelude to cancer.
Despite a long and concerted industry campaign to discredit Pusztai, part of the results of his GE potato study were duly peer-reviewed and published in the scientific literature. However, despite the industry and scientific establishment dismissing his work, there has been little attempt made to independently repeat and confirm the study, as is usually the case in science.
Pusztai has published other results of his experiments since, which raise serious question over the safety of GM foods. In the USA Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety GM food using the same standards and requirements as under U.S. food law generally.
Substances added to food that do not meet the statutory definition of “generally recognised as safe,” and that are not pesticides, are classified as food or colour additives and must be pre- approved before they may be marketed.
Manufacturers GM foods are held responsible for the safety of their products under both general US law and general provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. In addition prior to marketing these GM foods manufacturers are required to submit to FDA documentation demonstrating their safety and await approval for their use.
The claim of manufacturers being held responsible flies in the face of every fact available. In May of 2006 Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 6 bills addressing the gaps in legislative protections in the GMO food category. Among them is H.R. 4816. The Genetically Engineered Organism Liability Act would hold the companies responsible, but this is far from the case at present time.
Some people raise concerns that the safety of these novel food forms relies on the voracity of the manufacturers doing the testing. Defenders of the regulatory model point out that such a model has served the public well for many years with respect to non-GM food, drugs and food additives.
They further point out that manufacturers data is subject to close scrutiny and that the law protects the consumers from manufactures of dangerous foods.
It is thus in the manufactures best interests to ensure that the safety testing of GM foods is done adequately. This reflects the opinion of the pro- industry Ag-Bio World. Many believe regulatory models fail to protect consumers and are subject to pressure and influence by industry. In addition many FDA approved drugs have been recalled in the wake of unreported side effects or suppressed findings.
Dangerous Corn:
Another controversy recently arose around biotech company Monsanto’s data on a 90-Day Rat Feeding Study on a strain of GM corn.
In May 2005, critics of GM foods pointed to differences in kidney size and blood composition found in this study, suggesting that the observed differences called into question the regulatory doctrine of substantial equivalence – that GM food with similar proteins and toxins is deemed no different from conventional food, without further investigation of the effects of any other differences.
Some argued that this study suggested human health might be affected by eating GM food. However, the EU regulatory authorities that examined the Monsanto data concluded that the observed small numerical decrease in rat kidney weights was not biologically meaningful, and the weights were well within the normal range of kidney weights for control animals.
There were no corresponding microscopic findings in the relevant organ systems, and all blood chemistry and organ weight values fell within the “normal range of historical control values” for rats. Thus, the experts concluded that there were no effects on the functioning of kidneys in rats fed a diet of GM corn.
New Allergens:
GMOs that induce allergies have been produced in the laboratory. In 1993 Pioneer Hi-Bred International developed a soybean variety with an added gene from the Brazil nut. This gene increased the levels of methionine, a nutrient commonly added to poultry feed, in the GM soybean.
However, a preliminary Pioneer funded study by the University of Nebraska indicated that the added gene could cause allergic reactions in humans. The completed study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, later confirmed the preliminary results. .Pioneer discontinued further development of the GM soybean and had all material related to the modified soybeans destroyed.
While this study indicates the possible risks of GM foods, some point out it establishes the commitment the developmental community has toward consumer safety as well as the competence of current safeguards.
A similar result was published in November 2005, when a pest resistant field pea developed by the Australian CSIRO for use as a pasture crop was shown to cause an allergic reaction in mice. The immunologist who tested the pea noted that the episode illustrated the need for each new GM food to be very carefully evaluated for potential health effects.
Environmental and Dcological Impacts:
There is some evidence for positive impacts of the planting of GM crops on reduced green-house gas emissions and pesticide loads in the environment. However, there has been controversy over the results of a farm-scale trial in the United Kingdom comparing the impact of GM crops and conventional crops on farmland biodiversity.
Some claimed that the results showed that GM crops had a significant negative impact on wildlife. Others pointed out that the studies showed that using herbicide resistant GM crops allowed better weed control and that under such conditions there were fewer weeds and fewer weed seeds.
This result was then extrapolated to suggest that GM crops would have significant impact on the wildlife that might rely on farm weeds. In July 2005 the same British scientists showed that transfer of a herbicide-resistance gene from GM oilseed rape to a wild cousin, charlock, and wild turnips was possible.
As far back as 1996, a weed that could resist five times the recommended Roundup dosage was found in Australia, and in 2000 scientists discovered a herbicide- tolerant canola plant that cross-pollinated with a related weed. That same year, canola weeds resistant to three herbicides, were reported in western Canada. Since then, reports of glyphosate-tolerant weeds have only increased.
Has Roundup Ready soy been a good deal for the American farmer? In Illinois the use of RR soy has resulted in the most expensive weed control system in modern history: between $40 and $60 per hectare. Before the introduction of RR seed, such costs averaged $26 per hectare.
In addition, RR soy yields are on average no larger than those of non-RR varieties, and in fact are sometimes lower. A 1998 Iowa farmer survey found RR soy to yield 4% less than conventional soy. And then there’s the seed’s cost. An Iowa farmer can spend $26.42 per acre on RR soy seeds, whereas conventional varieties cost $18.89 per acre.
Bt Crops:
The industry claims that Bt crops have greatly reduced pesticide use. But whether less pesticide is actually used because of Bt crops is an open question. A 1999 study by the USDA’s Economic Research Service showed no statistically significant difference in pesticide use between Bt and non-Bt crops.
In fact, it found that m the Mississippi Delta, significantly more pesticides were sprayed on Bt crops. But the greatest problem is the development of pest resistance to the Bt toxin, warns UC Professor Miguel Altieri, “No serious entomologist questions whether resistance will develop or not. The question is, how fast?”
In Makhathini Flats, South Africa, the majority of small-scale farmers that used Bt cotton have stopped planting it because they could not repay their debts. A five-year study by Bio-watch South Africa showed most farmers that planted Bt cotton had not benefited.
In India, Bt cotton failed huge numbers of farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, many of whom were driven to suicide as a result of heavy debts from purchasing Bt cotton seed, which was 3-4 times the price of conventional cotton.
Bt crops can also harm beneficial insects and adversely affect soil ecology. Adverse effects of Bt crops on beneficial insects were known at least as far back as 1999, when research led by Charles Losey of Cornell University discovered that Bt corn pollen was toxic to monarch butterflies, under laboratory conditions.
Losey came under withering attack by pro-industry scientists, as were Pusztai, Chapela and Quist in their moment, but Losey’s critics ignore that subsequent research confirmed that -Bt crops indeed are a hazard to “non-target” species.
Ethical Aspects of Food Biotechnology:
The initial developments in food biotechnology, focused on the GM of micro-organisms to enhance production of enzymes for use in food manufacture. The application of GM in these areas, remains the most extensive use in food production to date.
A further major area of application has been the development of a wide range of crops modified for agronomic traits. The main traits developed for commercial use to date have been: herbicide resistance and insect resistance (e.g. in maize, Soya bean, cotton, oil seed rape), and virus resistance (e.g. potato).
Experiments are increasing rapidly on crops modified for nutritional and health advantages in the final food product, so called ‘functional foods’ and ‘nutriceuticals’, both for human consumption and animal feed.
In addition, crops and animals are being modified for production of pharmaceutical benefit, so called ‘pharming’. The metaphor is used of crops becoming factories, producing: vaccines (e.g. the polio vaccine in a banana), plastics, industrial starches, and feed supplements and enzymes.
The initial developments are directed to the food production in the developed world. Promised modification of crops for growth in the difficult conditions in the developing countries are not at the marketing stage whereas, herbicide and insect resistant plants are being extensively planted in North America, Australia, China, and increasingly Latin America.
The increased commercial planting of GM crops has in turn brought increased public awareness of the entry of GM into the food chain.
The identification of the important social and ethical aspects of food biotechnology for EU consumers can be derived from an analysis of both quantitative surveys, conducted by Euro-barometer, and qualitative surveys carried out in The Netherlands and the UK The Euro-barometer Survey 46.1 ‘The Europeans and modern biotechnology’, supplemented two earlier surveys from 1991 and 1993 on European citizen opinion on biotechnology.
The findings of this survey include the following salient observations:
Knowledge and anticipated effects of the technology:
There is a correlation amongst respondents between a greater objective knowledge and both optimistic and pessimistic views of its anticipated effects. Greater knowledge does not bring either increased support for biotechnology nor greater opposition.
Perceptions of benefit and risk of applications:
Perception of risk is higher amongst those with greater objective knowledge and those who have discussed biotechnology over recent months, but such perception is low amongst those with little knowledge. Overall Europeans show awareness of both benefits and risks of Biotechnology — a mixed stance that has been mirrored in surveys in countries such as Canada and Australia.
Labelling:
The majority of the respondents (74%) favour labelling of genetically modified foods.
Regulation:
Overall, the findings suggests a lack of confidence in self-regulation, but also a relative lack of trust and confidence in the effectiveness of EU and national regulation and institutions, suggesting worrying implications for the legitimacy of the governance of modern biotechnology.
Confidence and trust:
The lack of confidence in government is echoed in the response to the question as to the most reliable source of information on biotechnology.
The responses were as follows:
1. Consumer organisations.
2. Environmental protection organisations.
3. Schools: universities.
4. Public authorities.
5. Industry.
A problem for surveys of attitudes to biotechnology, has been the lack of prior knowledge and understanding of the technology amongst the public. However respondents can, and do, draw on their existing cognitive frameworks to formulate their attitudes on the technology and its applications.
Hence, in addition to these quantitative surveys, more qualitative attempts have been made to assess consumer attitudes to GM food, by seeking to relate consumer’s attitudes to their more deeply held concerns and values.
These surveys were conducted in The Netherlands and the UK. The key values which emerged were based around perceptions of trust, choice, need and care for a sustainable society, which included conceptions of natural balance.
Lack of trust in the regulatory process and the credibility of regulations emerged from research in the UK and were linked to a weak sense of agency in the regulatory process. Conversely, in The Netherlands where the respondents felt trust in the regulatory process and authorities, then they also felt that they had control.
However, this trust can be undermined by fear, which can be induced by lack of knowledge of food production and how to interpret information on the packaging.
Variation in products and variation in prices, as well as, consumer knowledge about the interpretation of information on packages of foodstuffs and the production methods. Because of a lack of knowledge and uncertainty over the effects on health and natural balance, biotechnology undermines this freedom of choice somewhat and engenders some fear and insecurity. The notion of choice was a complex issue.
On consumer choice, the low price of a food was a key determinant, but was also seen as an economic constraint against real personal choice. Labelling was seen to be of limited utility because of the desire to have information about the social context of the decision to produce a food through GM.
Choice as a citizen was also an important factor, but here there was resignation and, once again, a lack of a sense of personal agency. Applications of food biotechnology that are seen as important, or needed, are supported, as opposed to those that are seen as trivial. Perceived need was associated with agricultural applications in which modification appeared to improve production as opposed to the end product.
Consumers are at pains to discriminate between classes of product and the different issues, negative and positive, that these raised. For example, whether the use of herbicide was increased or reduced was seen as an important criterion for assessing GM crops.
The value of care for a sustainable society covers concerns over: the natural balance, the usefulness or necessity of the application of modern biotechnology, trust, health, social dissipation and third world problems.
Natural balance covered recognition of potentially positive implications of biotechnology such as: possible cleaner, less chemical dependent, and more efficient food production protecting the environment and using fewer raw materials, and the preservation of rare species through cloning.
Negative effects were also identified such as: decline in crop diversity, as super crops may come to predominate food production, overproduction, with threats to the environment and ecosystems, and irreversibility of harm, for example upon different trophic levels in the natural food chain.
Individual choice can also be seen from the perspective of the consumer, as well as the citizen. The notion of informed choice in the market place is the basis of the concept of consumer behaviour. This requires the availability of different types of products, adequate labelling and knowledge to allow informed choice.
The nature of the citizen, in contrast, refers to the individual in relation to governance. A situation in which a majority of the Europeans reject or accept biotechnology: GM on ill-defined grounds is undesirable. Therefore, an extensive information campaign is needed to allow Europeans to make an informed choice.
The information to be provided should consist of several elements, including:
1. A basic understanding of GM and food production processes through the food chain.
2. Advantages and disadvantages of GM as portrayed from different perspectives.
3. A system of labelling, including the labelling of products.
4. And finally, it must clarify the decision making process and involve a wide range of information providers.
However, the role of information is limited if there is no basic education in this field. Therefore, a good longer term strategy is to build the above elements in the European education system. This is currently the responsibility of member states, but the European Commission has a role to play. A major instrument for making informed choice has always been considered the labelling of food products.
The basis of the European regulation of GM food is that only food that is no longer equivalent to non GM food should be labelled, as laid down in EC Regulations: 258:97 and 1139:98. The method of determining equivalence, as laid down for the food products of GM Soya and maize in 1139:98, is through the detection of modified DNA or protein in the final food.
The entry of GMOs into the food chain and the massive commingling of GM crops with non GM crops has clouded the efficacy of labelling the final product. This is especially the case for compound foodstuffs that contain ingredients, such as oils and lecithin, derived from raw materials that have undergone modification at an earlier stage of the food chain. Such ingredients may not be detectable.
Many retailed foods are likely to contain ingredients that originate from GM crops but are not labelled. Also, in large scale food industrial processes and commodity trading systems, contamination cannot be avoided. This can only be accommodated by the application of threshold levels.
In addition, the labelling system must be verifiable. For consumers, wishing to make their choice of food product based on the relatively sophisticated and differentiated bases, as outlined previously, such as the impact upon the environment and upon sustainability of the form of agricultural production, labelling will prove to be neither informative nor transparent.
Although the labelling system is not entirely consistent, it is in itself a useful element of consumer information. A comprehensive review of the system to get more uniformity is desirable.
Complementary to labelling, transparency right through the food chain must be created, by the use of a comprehensive system of segregation and certification of GM crops and their products from non GM crops at each stage of the food chain, and for this to be reflected in the final labelling information.
There is ample precedence for such a comprehensive system of transparency as in the case of halal meat production and organic food certification. This degree of transparency would allow consumers to make a more fully informed choice of foodstuffs, in line with their more deeply felt values on such issues, and would provide for a more democratic and participatory basis for transparency.
With the increased use of GM crops, segregation will become even more important. The public’s need, and expressed desire, for information on food production and content need to be acknowledged and incorporated into regulatory decisions, so that consumers can express their preferences in the market place.
In the case of food biotechnology such risk may become more acceptable where there is transparency and openness throughout the processes of production in the food chain and at the point of consumption. This is reflected by public support for the labelling of the products of modern biotechnology and full information about their food. Such transparency may need to include traceability throughout the food chain.
Greater public knowledge and access to information alone will not guarantee public acceptance of the products of food biotechnology. There is a need to reconnect the public to the decision making, governing the regulatory processes for food biotechnology, in order to build public trust and confidence in this decision making.
This will involve decision making, which is seen to take the differing views of the public, both as consumers and as citizens with different social interests into account. In order to incorporate these views, greater understanding is needed about the basic values of the different publics throughout Europe and how these values inform their attitudes towards food biotechnology.
These qualitative surveys need to embrace all of the member states in Europe. These surveys should be sponsored by the European Commission and member state governments. The findings of such surveys must be incorporated into the decision-making processes, starting at the level of R&D policies through to the risk analysis of GMO and food biotechnology products.
Further techniques will be utilised to incorporate the public’s views, which may include the use of citizens’ juries and consensus conferences. This wider inclusion into the decision making process should engender greater social acceptability and trust in the regulatory processes through greater public involvement and understanding.
This involvement will lead to a more informed and effective regulatory process. Public acceptance may also be enhanced through extending this more open process of regulation into more informed consumer choice in the marketplace through greater transparency.
The development of modern biotechnology may contribute to the move towards a sustainable society if it meets with the following conditions, which take into account the concerns and values of consumers:
1. The applications fit in to more ecologically balanced agro-systems, such as rapid detection methods for infections with pests, diseases or other types of stress in plants.
2. The applications lead to less waste in crop production and diminish the need for chemical pesticides.
3. The benefits can be justified to consumers, in terms of values that they perceive as important in food production, for example ensuring the application can be linked to a ‘more natural’ form of production.
4. Awareness is shown in the development of the technology of the possible negative impacts that its deployment might have on the interests of small-scale farmers in the developing countries, for example the development should focus on low-tech, easily adaptable and cheap applications for developing countries.
5. Greater trust is created: by ensuring transparency over the deployment of biotechnology throughout the food chain, from laboratory and field research, through commercial growing, commodity handling, and food processing, to retail and consumption of the products of food biotechnology.
Risk Regulation:
Attempting to predict the effects of the use of GM in agriculture and food production has raised several scientific uncertainties. These are the focus of scientific research projects within Europe. Scientific opinion is divided about the importance of these uncertainties.
These uncertainties include:
1. Incomplete scientific knowledge about how genes work in a specific environmental context to be able to predict with certainty what will happen when genes are transferred from one organism to another, and about the stability of the transferred genes.
2. The possibility of ‘escape’ of transgenes from their host organism into others.
3. That the GMOs themselves will become invasive or persistent.
4. Other unintentional and unpredicted interactions between GMOs and their environment.
5. GMOs and food safety.
6. Effects upon agricultural practice.
7. Secondary impacts upon bio-diversity.
These scientific uncertainties are reflected in consumers’ perception of the risks of the release of GMOs into the environment and the consumption of GM food.
An example of a template commonly used for the process of risk analysis for food and environmental safety is the scheme defined by the FAO: WHO Consultation on Risk Analysis held in Geneva in 1995.
This scheme defines risk analysis as including:
1. Risk assessment.
2. Risk management.
3. Risk communication.
Risk assessment consists of:
(i) Hazard identification,
(ii) Hazard characterisation,
(iii) Exposure assessment and
(iv) Risk characterisation.
Risk management is the process of managing the output of the risk assessment step (the risk characterisation). Risk communication is a two-way exchange of views covering the whole process. The European Commission proposed that the process of risk assessment of food safety should be seen as a scientific process, to be conducted by scientific advisors.
The processes of risk management and communication were identified as the political processes. The basis for risk assessment is scientific, however the experience with GMOs and GM Food is limited. These uncertainties have led to deployment of the precautionary principle to the process of risk analysis of GMOs.
Precautionary Principle:
The precautionary principle is an approach to risk management that is applied in circumstances of scientific uncertainty reflecting the need to take action in the face of potentially serious harm in the absence of scientific proof. The precautionary principle is not a matter for science alone, since it is a political and value laden statement expressing a fundamental shift in attitude of the general public to the environment.
Taking a precautionary approach to the application of modern biotechnology to food and agriculture includes monitoring when necessary to indicate possible adverse effects, and the assessment of risk be modified in line with developing knowledge of the impacts of the technology and its applications.
The application of the precautionary principle to risk management of food biotechnology in practice, is found in the EC directive regulating the deliberate release of GMOs to the Environment. All releases of GMOs to the environment have to be given approval under the Deliberate Release Directive.
The precautionary principle operates through a case-by case, step-by-step assessment of the risks. Each GMO is considered individually and authorisation for placing on the market is only given once data has been collected from experimental trials which demonstrate chat unrestricted use will have no adverse effects.
Risk assessment needs to be based upon scientific calculations, but as these calculations are subject to uncertainties, the wider influences and social contexts affecting such calculations need to be acknowledged and incorporated into the process of risk analysis.
The public’s perceptions of risk are socially constructed, leading to a gap between the risk perceptions of the public and those of experts on a wide variety of hazards. While scientific estimates of risk fail to take account of social constructions of risk, the public’s estimates are likewise based on factors other than scientific assessment.
The confidence in risk regulators, is also a factor in the public acceptance of risk, as are factors such as: dread, long term effects, and the concern that exposure to risk is involuntary. Where risk exposure is perceived as more voluntary, that is where the public perceive that they have the opportunity to make an informed choice, then such risk may become more acceptable.
The public’s assessment of these other factors, apart from scientific calculations, means that risk perceptions are socially embedded. At present, a number of these factors are not being addressed in the regulatory process. Research indicates that there is considerable lack of trust by consumers in both government and industry, yet it is these institutions which are responsible for introducing the techniques.
Thus even if regulatory controls and risk analysis are properly conducted they might not be believed. The need is to link both the concepts of risk and trust. The incorporation of wider social concerns as articulated by different social actors should be included in risk analysis to produce a more socially embedded and acceptable process of risk analysis of the applications of modern biotechnology to food.
The key point of this modified scheme is that decisions are made incorporating both risk analysis and social impact analysis, building greater trust in and acceptance of the regulatory process. This will improve the quality of decision making and facilitate its expedition, which should at the minimum meet the same time frame as the previous scheme for risk analysis.
In the revised scheme the regulatory and social streams will overlap and interact to produce a more widely negotiated set of criteria, which will frame the risk analysis. The decision is made by the risk manager, taking into account the social impact analysis and the lay perspectives.
These perspectives will be continuously monitored and evaluated and will inform the decision making. The scheme will provide a more socially responsive, plural and accountable form of decision making.
Policy around the World:
In 2000, countries that grew 99% of the global transgenic crops were the United States (68%), Argentina (23%), Canada (7%), and China (1%). Although growth is expected to plateau in industrialised countries, it is increasing in developing countries.
There are two policy areas surrounding GM food:
1. The standards and regulation of testing for food safety and;
2. The requirements for labelling and traceability of GM products in the food chain.
Countries vary on their approach to both these points. In the United States, genetically modified food is widely available. The left-wing environmental movement has attempted to challenge the adoption of gm. crops by attacking the biotech industry and the limited governmental intervention in food processing and packaging.
Efforts to force fear driven mandatory labelling and have been met with industry, consumer, and government indifference.
The Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety of all foods sold including the safety of GM foods. Under these regulations, substances added to food that do not meet the statutory definition of generally recognised as safe, and that are not pesticides, are classified as food or colour additives and must be pre-approved before they may be marketed.
Prior to marketing food additives, manufacturers are required to submit to FDA documentation demonstrating their safety and await approval for their use. For a list of the GM foods that have been regulated in this way see FDA’s List of Completed Consultations on Bioengineered Foods.
Section 402(a)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act covers unintentional introduction of unsafe toxicants into foods. Producers of the foods are legally responsible to ensure that no substance occurs in the food that “may render” the food injurious to health. In order to comply with this part of the act GM companies subject new GM foods to safety testing in animal models.
Some people raise concerns that the safety of these novel food forms relies on the effectiveness of testing by food manufacturers. Defenders of the regulatory model point out that such a model has served the public well for many years with respect to non-GM food, drugs and food additives.
They further point out that manufacturers data is subject to close scrutiny and that the law protects the consumers from manufactures of dangerous foods. It is thus in the manufacturers’ best interests to ensure that the safety testing of GM foods is done adequately.
Section 403(i) of Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires that a producer of a food product must reveal on a label “all facts that are material with respect to consequences which may result from use”.
Under the act a consumer must be informed by labelling if a food derived from a new plant variety differs from its traditional counterpart with respect to a safety or usage issue. The FDA takes the view that the method of production of the new plant variety is not “material” to whether a food needs to be labelled under the act.
The FDA’s policy is that foods be considered on case by case basis and that labelling would be required on individual GM food products if these GM foods were materially different.
In Europe, a series of unrelated food crises during the 1990s outbreaks and foot and mouth disease) have created consumer apprehension about food safety in general, and eroded the public trust in government oversight of the food industry. This has further fuelled widespread public concern about GMOs, in terms of environmental protection, health and safety of consumers and the right to make an informed choice.
The apprehension might also be due to the novelty of GM foods, as well as cultural factors relating to food. The mishandling of the BSE crisis has left some consumers unwilling to consider “science” to be a guarantee of quality.
European consumers are demanding that their “right to know” the content and origin of the food they consume be respected. In a context of local food surplus where current GM food has little added nutritional value, many European consumers are wondering why any risk should be taken.
However, as a result of the high quantity of GMO crops, the presence of GM in imported food products (shipments of grain for food, feed-and processing for example), is now thought inevitable and largely unavoidable, and usually not mentioned.
For these reasons, the marketing of GM food is regulated in a manner that helps to provide the necessary levels of safety, transparency and reassurance. At the beginning of the 2000’s, European officials insisted that new regulations were needed to “restore consumer confidence” in the technology.
These new regulations required strict labelling and traceability of all food and animal feed containing more than 0.5% GM ingredients. Directives, such as directive 2001/18/EC, were designed to require authorisation for the placing on the market of GMO, in accordance with the precautionary principle.
One of the features of the European system is a comprehensive pre-market risk assessment, a system trying to provide means for products to be followed at each stage of their production and distribution, by both transmission of accurate information and labelling.
This traceability is a means to implement post-market measures such as monitoring and withdrawals. This system is not only limited to GMO products but should encompass any food product ultimately.
The original EU rules for labelling of GM products were limited to products where transformed DNA and/ or transformed protein are detectable, not to products that have been produced from GMOs but no longer appears to contain modified DNA and/or proteins.
New rules for tracebility and labelling which came into force in 2004 also require labelling of highly refined products made from GM ingredients like oil and corn syrup, even though that the presence of recombinant DNA or protein cannot be proven.
The labelling rules do not apply to products of microbial genetic engineering, so the cheese made with the help of GM-chymosin doesn’t have to be labelled. Officials stress that while traceability facilitates the implementation of safety measures, where appropriate, it cannot and should not be considered as a safety measure.
In April 1998, a 5 year ban was pronounced on new genetically modified crops. At the end of 2002, European Union environment ministers agreed new controls on GMOs could eventually lead the 25-member bloc to reopen its markets to GM foods.
European Union ministers agreed to new labelling controls for genetically modified goods which will have to carry a special harmless DNA sequence identifying the origin of the crops, making it easier for regulators to spot contaminated crops, feed, or food, and enabling products to be withdrawn from the food chain should problems arise.
A series of additional sequences of DNA with encrypted information about the company or what was done to the product could also be added to provide more data.
Japan, like Europe, maintains labelling standards for GM food products. Japanese demand and assistance has led to a small effort to set up separate processing facility for non-GM soybeans in the U.S. Labelling is currently not required for GM food products sold in Canada.
In 2005, a standing committee began work in the province of Prince Edward Island to assess a proposal to ban the production of GM foods within the province.
China is currently a producer of GM cotton. Research published in Science claims that Chinese farmers growing GM cotton use significantly less pesticides, reducing costs and improving farmer health.
The Chinese government has also released safety certificates following field and laboratory testing allowing the cultivation of GM tomato, pimiento and a species of morning glory. Development of new GM crops for food is an active field of research in Chinese institutions.
In March 2002, China introduced biosafety rules that demanded strict labelling, extensive documentation and government approval for food shipments. Under these new rules, all soybean shipments from the United States were briefly interrupted until interim safety certificates could be acquired.
In 2004 the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture announced its intention to assess the safety of GM rice lines developed by Chinese institutions for insect, disease and herbicide resistance. With government approval the crops may be planted as soon as spring 2006.
Agriculture officials from developing and other economically disadvantaged nations are receiving training courses on GMO at the American Agriculture Department, with instruction in the WTO rules on GM products and benefits of biotechnology. U.S. industry groups are also providing “technical assistance” to fund initiatives that promote “science-based and transparent biotechnology regulations” in countries such as China.
When, for instance, the U.S. Trade Representative launched a WTO case against the European Union over its moratorium on GM product approvals, he was flanked not by the heads of the U.S. corporations that stood to benefit from the hoped for improvement in market penetration, but by scientists who came, at least originally, from India and Kenya and by a ‘small farmer’ from South Africa.
There is good reason for scepticism about some of the pro-industry ‘faces’ being flown in from the global South. In some cases ‘small farmers’ supposedly leading a ‘hand-to-mouth existence’ in Asia or Africa have turned out not to be subsistence farmers at all.
Some have been groomed by Monsanto and appear to be reading carefully scripted statements. Independent scientists, websites and lobby groups claiming to represent those in developing countries can also prove not to be as independent or representative as they claim.