THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

30 March 2004

Dear Friends and colleagues,

Re:  ISSUES ON LABELLING AND DOCUMENTATION OF GMOS

Attached below are more press reports on the recently concluded first meeting of the Parties to the Biosafety Protocol. In this mailout we have for you an article that provides an overview of the issues surrounding the discussions on labeling and documentation.

In the second article, Mexico’s trilateral agreement with the US and Canada is seen as a threat to further contamination of the country’s maize. The pact allows for up to five percent threshold of contamination. This meant that there is no guarantee that GM pharmaceutical maize would not be introduced into Mexico, thus rendering its ban ‘irrelevant’, say NGOs.

With best wishes,

Lim Li Lin and Chee Yoke Heong

Third World Network

121-S Jalan Utama

10450 Penang

Malaysia

Email: twnet@po.jaring.my

Website: www.twnside.org.sg

REF: Doc.TWN/Biosafety/2004/I

Part 1

Say What’s Inside

By Tan Cheng Li, The Star, Malaysia, February 25, 2004

Labelling of transboundary shipments of genetically modified organisms is being defined in a global meet on biosafety, writes TAN CHENG LI. 

WHEN shipments of genetically modified organisms or living modified organisms (GMOs or LMOs) cross boundaries, there are potential risks to both human and environmental health. For instance, GM crops have been linked with deaths of cows, farm rats and chicken. Many maize varieties have been engineered to produce pharmaceuticals. Should these end up in Mexico, the centre of origin for maize, there may be threats to the genetic integrity of the crop.  

Thus identification of GM products through labelling and documentation is crucial in terms of biosafety. This will segregate them from conventional stuff as well as give consumers the right to choose. This labelling is one way to comply with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which requires countries to take measures to ensure safe handling, packaging and transportation of LMOs.  

The Protocol, however, stops short of spelling out how labelling should be done. It only states that GM commodities for food, feed and processing be identified as “may contain” LMOs.

The 87 countries which are party to the Protocol, now in Kuala Lumpur for the First Meeeting of the Parties (MOP1), must decide on the labelling and documentation of these LMOs shipments.  

They must decide on details such as: How to label LMO products? What sort of accompanying documents are needed and who should furnish them? How much LMOs must a shipment contain to trigger labelling?  

In run-up meetings to MOP1, parties could not agree on these elements. While many developing nations prefer strict labelling rules, GM producing countries do not since GM commodities for food, feed and processing form 90% of GM products traded today. These countries would rather keep labelling and documentation to a minimum so as not to obstruct trade in LMOs. Australia and Canada also want discussions on detailed documentation postponed to a later date to allow parties to gain experience in implementing the “may contain” labelling requirement.  

A major dispute is whether commercial invoices accompanying shipments suffice, or must exporters notify the national regulatory body, and what sort of information these should have.  

Eric Gall of Greenpeace International says detailed documentation is crucial. “This must include the precise list of GMOs contained in shipments to enable importing countries to verify that these are approved varieties and assess them for biosafety threats.”  

The speaker for the African Group also called for strong documentation of LMOs. The delegate says merely identifying the shipment as “may contain” LMOs was meaningless and useless as it does not tell importing countries what is in it.  

While countries squabble over these matters, a trilateral agreement signed in October between the United States, Canada and Mexico has spelt out its own terms for labelling transboundary GM shipments intended for food, feed and processing. The group is promoting the agreement as a template for labelling rules under the Protocol.  

Groups, however, criticise the agreement for pre-empting negotiations at MOP1 and for promoting weak labelling standards. Under the agreement, only shipments which contain over 5% of LMOs need to be labelled as “may contain LMOs”. And as long as the contamination of LMOs is unintentional, labelling is unnecessary.  

“These proposals are unacceptable,” says Juan Lopez of Friends of the Earth International. “It allows a shipment of grain that is only 95% pure (free of LMOs) to be defined as a non-GMO shipment. And a shipment need not be labelled, even if it has a large amount of GMO content, so long as it is unintentional contamination.”  

“These countries are promoting weak standards that will deny consumers the right to know what’s in their food and will not adequately protect citizens and the environment from risks,” says Lopez.  

The agreement also assumes a threshold for contamination has been set at 5%. In fact, Europe enforces a threshold of 0.9%. The agreement is said to provide little information, and only in the commercial invoices accompanying the shipment.  

United States officials say the trilateral agreement serves to clarify labelling and documentation requirements since none are available currently under the Protocol.  

John Pitchford, director of international affairs at the US Department of Agriculture, says the agreement advances the Protocol’s objectives in a manner compatible with current commercial trade practices.  

“Our experience can be used to inform future decisions to be made under the Protocol.”  

He denies that the agreement promotes weaker standards. “We just have a different approach.” He also says information on shipments of LMOs should be in commercial invoices (as decided under the trilateral agreement) rather than government documents since Customs officials would be the people most likely to view the papers.  

US farmer Jerry Slocum asserts that complete purity cannot be achieved in shipments of GM grains because of the huge quantities handled in the process of production, storage, distribution and processing.  

He says bulk commodities made it impossible to segregate by individual variety and to ensure purity of cargoes. “The 0.9% threshold (used in Europe) is very, very difficult to achieve. That’s a real concern for us. We must recognise that unintentional presence of LMOs exist and is a way of life,” says Slocum, who is with the United Soybean Board. 

Right now, however, threshold figures are just one of the many details not spelt out by the Protocol.

Part 2

Mexico Bans Imports of GM Maize, NGOs Say Move is ‘Irrelevant’

By Sarah Sabaratnam and Koh Lay Chin, The New Straits Times, Malaysia, 27 Feb 2004

Mexico has, with immediate effect, banned the imports of genetically modified maize, or “biopharmaceuticals” , engineered for pharmaceutical or industrial use.

“Biopharming” is an experimental application of biotechnology in which plants are genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical proteins and chemicals that they do not produce naturally, such as industrial enzymes, biodegradable plastics, blood thinners and vaccines.

At a Press conference yesterday, Mexico’s Interministery Commission on Biosafety and Genetically Modified Organisms (Cibiogem) executive secretary Dr Victor Manuel Villalobos Arambula said Mexico imported genetically modified corn from the US and Canada for agriculture use only, and would prohibit any research or import of corn engineered for any other purpose.

Currently, Mexico imports most of its maize from the US, and traces of transgenic or GM maize have been found in their fields although GM maize is not legalized for cultivation.

It is believed that Mexican farmers planted US GM maize intended for food and feed without knowing it was genetically modified.

Arambula said: “Since Mexico is a centre of origin of corn and corn plays an important role in our culture, any transgenic change made on corn other than as a source fro food will have an impact on human health and the environment.”

In an immediate reaction, non-governmental organizations scoffed at this announcement, saying it was “irrelevant” as Mexico  has already signed a trilateral agreement with the US and Canada that threatened to further contaminate Mexico’s maize.

The trilateral agreement states there will be a five per cent threshold for contamination, where if a shipment of GM grain has less than five per cent GM, it can be identified as a “non-GM” shipment.

Greenpeace science adviser Doreen Stabinsky said since the agreement also stated that shipment with “unintentional” GM contamination would not require identification, there was no guarantee that GM pharmaceutical maize would not be introduced into Mexico.

“It does not really matter if they impose the ban. They are not looking out for any unintentional presence and are not monitoring its entry into Mexico,” she said.

Mexico had also earlier defended the trilateral agreement and its imports of GM maize, saying there was no scientific proof that GM maize posed a risk to human health, to basic, crop, or to its biodiversity.

“(GM crops have) benefited agriculture and the environment thanks to the sensible reduction in the use of pesticided,: it said in a statement read out by Arambula.

The trilateral agreement, it said, would allow Mexico to share information about GM crops with the other two countries, as well as enable it to develop common approaches to risk assessment and enhance capacity-building.

Admitting that it has encountered “mistrust and criticism” from other countries for signing the agreement, Mexico said the agreement was in line with the objectives of the Cartagena Protocol.