GMW: Ensuring food safety in the GM age/Toxic kinnows, anyone?

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GMW: Ensuring food safety in the GM age/Toxic kinnows, anyone?

" GM WATCH " <info

Fri, 8 Jul 2005 09:35:13 +0100

 

 

 

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1.Ensuring food safety in the GM age

2.Toxic kinnows, anyone?

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1.Ensuring food safety in the GM age

Gargi Parsai

The Hindu, Jul 08, 2005

http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/08/stories/2005070804321100.htm

 

The proposed Food Safety Bill must ensure labelling and traceability of

genetically modified foods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WORLD over there is a growing demand for governments to make

stringent laws for safety assessments of genetically modified (GM) food

products before approval is given for marketing them in a country. In

India

the laws on this crucial aspect of food safety are fuzzy. India depends

on voluntary declaration/labelling but has no visible guidelines or

code of practice or even accessible equipment for testing.

 

A new draft Food Safety and Standards Bill, 2005, coming up for

approval before the Union Cabinet, is also largely silent on the issue

but for

an intent to deal with it. The Bill, meant for integrating various food

laws and regulations, proposes setting up a Food Safety and Standards

Authority along with a Scientific Committee and Panels. All prevalent

food laws are proposed to be subsumed/repealed in the new law. Its

framers insist that the laws on GM foods - including the significant

aspect

of traceability and labelling of such foods - would be taken care of

once the Bill is adopted by Parliament.

 

The recent instance of rats fed on GM maize having developed organ

abnormalities and changes in the blood profile should alert the

authorities

on safety and health aspect of such foods, not to speak of the World

Health Organisation advisory on the subject.

 

So far the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee is the only agency

authorised to deal with GM foods/micro organisms/crops. This high-profile

but rather non-transparent body has approved commercial cultivation of

Bt cotton in parts of the country.

 

As for the entry of GM foods into the country - particularly from the

United States and Canada where labelling of GM foods or traceability is

not mandatory - it has been left to the authorities at the ports of

entry to identify and test them. Lack of information, knowledge, and

testing laboratories allows such foods to come in unnoticed. Unless such

products are declared as such by the exporters, there is no way of

knowing

that sweet corn, corn blends, soy nuggets, soy granules, tofu, soy

drinks, and soy sauce entering Indian markets are non-GM. Recently, some

non-governmental organisations also questioned the regulatory systems for

such and other products and sought a ban on GM foods.

 

In fact, there are differences among nations on GM foods. The European

Union and Japan have in place labelling and traceability requirements

for GM food products, while the U.S. and Canada have no such standards

and believe the technology is safe ostensibly based on trade interests.

The U.S., Canada, and Argentina are disputing the EU norm in the World

Trade Organisation. Most of the commercial focus is on a limited number

of traits, mainly herbicide tolerance and pest resistance, and on crops

such as cotton, soybean and maize.

 

Recently, the WHO called upon Governments to " pause for thought " before

approving wider use of GM foods technology. It advised them to

undertake a case-by-case risk assessment of each new GM food. While GM

foods

could increase crop yield, food quality, and the diversity of foods, they

could also introduce new types of genes into the food chain, the WHO

warned. Although the consumption of GM foods is not known to have caused,

so far, any negative health effects, some of the genes introduced in

the food chain may cause changes in the genetic make-up of crops.

Therefore the potential human health effects should always be assessed

before

they are cultivated and marketed, with long-term monitoring.

 

In India, most food safety laws are governed by the Prevention of Food

Adulteration Act (PFA). However, since the exercise of bringing all

food laws under the Food Safety Bill began, any " enabling provisions " for

amendments to the PFA Act have been put on hold.

 

The Ministry, however, recently notified for harmonisation of bakery

products, confectioneries, milk and milk products with Codex

Alimentarius standards.

 

The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1961-62 by the Food

and Agriculture Organisation and the WHO to develop food standards,

guidelines, and related texts such as codes of practice under their joint

Food Standards Programme. Its main purpose is to protect the health of

consumers, ensure fair practices in the food trade, and promote

coordination of all food standards.

 

The proposed Food Bill has triggered a tussle between the Ministry of

Food Processing and the Health Ministry, which has a plethora of rules,

regulations, not to talk of the massive manpower under the PFA Act.

However, speaking to The Hindu, the chair of the Group of Ministers and

Minister for Food and Agriculture Sharad Pawar said the GoM had not made

any recommendation on this issue. It had been left to the Union Cabinet

to take a decision. He said the Integrated Food Bill was meant to " give

a boost to agro-processing and agriculture. "

 

One of the major criticisms of the proposed Bill is that it is

industry-driven and the Food Authority is heavily " bureaucratic. "

 

Bejon Misra, the CEO of Consumer Voice, questioned how a Ministry (of

Food Processing) entrusted with promoting the interests of industry

could be assigned the task of piloting a Bill concerning the health and

safety of consumers. His concern was that the proposed Bill did not

address key issues of traceability, was silent on what was in store

for of

small players/vendors, and did not dwell on adulteration. Provisions on

imported foods and labelling were weak, and the penalties diluted. The

draft Bill in the present form emphasises on food trade over public

health.

 

However, A.N.P. Sinha, the food processing joint-secretary concerned

who drafted the Bill, said it was mandatory for all foods including GM

foods to conform to the Food and Customs Laws. He, however, conceded that

there were not enough testing laboratories, equipment and protocol for

testing GM foods. But major concerns had been accommodated in the final

draft sent to the Cabinet, he said.

 

In other words, unless the importer declares, as of now, there is no

way to know if the foods entering the country are GM or not. The proposed

Food Safety and Standards Bill must change it all for the safety of

all.

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2.Toxic kinnows, anyone?

 

Citrus fruit intercropped with Bt cotton, Punjab agriculture dept

pleads ignorance

 

AMRITA CHAUDHRY

Indian Express, July 7 2005

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=74024

 

RAMSAR (ABOHAR), JULY 7: BT may soon come to stand for 'beyond

transgression' in Punjab. Unleashed onto a state with little or no

knowledge of

farming bio transgenic crops, Bt cotton is rapidly compromising all

agriculture in areas where it is being grown.

 

One of the most scary trends to emerge in recent days relates to the

intercropping Bt cotton with regular crops. The pest-resistance USP of Bt

comes from a gene introduced into the seed: Its impact on the soil, or

on surrounding crops, is yet to be studied in Punjab. But with even

regular cotton blacklisted as an intercrop, the fallout of growing fruits

with Bt cotton can only be guessed at.

 

Or, just wait for a couple of years. That's how long it will take for

farmer Raghbeer Singh's kinnow orchard to bear fruit. In the meantime,

he has sown Bt, like many farmers in this belt who took to kinnow after

cotton failed repeatedly.

 

" Abohar has some of the largest kinnow orchards, and they're doing very

well. So a couple of years ago I decided to develop an orchard on five

acres of my 30-acres of land as well, " says Raghbeer Singh, a farmer.

 

Kinnow-harvesting is largely a contracted business in this belt, with

bids starting from Rs 50,000 and going upto Rs 2 lakh, depending on the

bounty.

 

" I am not particularly keen on cotton, but since it'll be another

two-three years before the orchard bears fruit, I sowed Bt too this

year, "

says Singh.

 

But wasn't he aware that it wasn't advisable to plant the highly toxic

Bt cotton in close proximity with regular crops? Singh confesses

ignorance. " But other farmers in the area have also intercropped Bt with

kinnow, " he defends his decision. " No one, not even the state

department of

agriculture, has told us if Bt cotton will affect other crops. "

 

The names change, but similar cases abound in Abohar.

 

Cotton Quiet

 

The farmer's ignorance about the toxicity of Bt crops is reflected in

the higher echelons of the state bureaucracy. " I am not sure whether Bt

deserves a special category, but I do know we do not advise

intercropping cotton with anything else, because the pesticide load on

cotton is

far higher than on any other crop. " says Punjab's director of

Agriculture B S Sidhu. " The pesticides which leach onto the soil

surface can

travel to the root system of the other crop. "

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