Modifying Packaging: Vital for GM Food
From 2015, high yield genetically modified (GM) plants such as rice, maize, soybean and colza will be grown on a large scale and be present in retail outlets throughout Vietnam, becoming a regular part of Vietnamese food items. The effects of these plants are undeniable. However, the problem will remain in how to label GM products so that consumers can make a choice between GM and non-GM products.
Globally, GM plants were grown for the first time 13 years ago and the results were greeted as one of the outstanding achievements yet in the field of biotechnology. Compared with traditional varieties of food crops, GM plants have more advantages. Specifically, GM plants are insect and herbicide resistant. They can grow well even in unfavorable weather conditions and contain more vitamins than traditional plant varieties. GM plants contribute to improving the quality of food, an important factor in terms of food security and health. Some scientists have predicted that the world’s food production output must double what it is today to sustain lives of nine billion people by 2050.
However, GM plants remain an unpopular concept for people in many countries. Today GM plants are grown in only 25 countries. Sixty one countries have approved 667 kinds of GM products and allowed them to be sold on the market. About 40 percent of these GM products have been approved in Asia. Some 40 countries have labeled GM products but only some of them have labeling regulations and just a few have enforced these regulations effectively.
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| Professor Paul Teng from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore |
Professor Paul Teng from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, who is the vice chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), said that GM products must be labeled to provide consumers with information about the products so that consumers are able to make a choice. The labeling of GM food is not aimed at proving the safety of the product, as all food must be approved by national-level management authorities before going to the market, Professor Paul Teng added. He also emphasized that the labeling of GM products must be done in compliance with the regulations of the importing countries.
“Singapore imports many kinds of food. Any labeling regulation that we apply must have practical meaning and a scientific basis to ensure that the labels provide consumers with accurate information about products and to prevent trade interruptions,†emphasized Professor Paul Teng.
Le Tien, the director of Agbiotech Vietnam, a company that specializes in providing information services related to biotechnology in agriculture, said that labels must provide consumers with information about the products they use. Labeling products also requires advertisers to be honest. In fact, however, some kinds of seeds and GM products of foreign origin have entered the domestic market via different channels. Most of these products have no label and tell buyers almost nothing about their GM product status.
Presently, most Vietnamese consumers do not yet know what GM products are. Labeling GM products is necessary but is very difficult to implement. This is a costly job and it requires a good social infrastructure system. It can increase production cost by 11-12 percent and this means a 10 percent increase in prices. This will result in lower sales because consumers will be unwilling to buy GM products.
Associate professor, Dr. Le Huy Ham, the director of the Agricultural Genetics Institute, said that publicizing the information about products by labeling will encourage consumers to feel confident about safety. Producers, however, will have to spend more on harvesting, drying, processing, packaging, preservation and transportation because during all these work stages, GM products must be kept separately from non-GM products. That means producers will have to double their work and production costs therefore will be much higher.
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| Associate professor, Dr. Le Huy Ham, the director of the Agricultural Genetics Institute |
Each country in the world has its own labeling regulations. For example, Japan and European countries require all kinds of GM food that contain ingredients with one percent GM materials to be labeled. In some developing countries, this rate is five percent. The expenditure on qualitative and quantitative assessments of goods is high, in the Philippines for example, it costs US$250 to get a qualitative assessment and US$450 to get a quantitative assessment.
For Vietnam, it is necessary to consider carefully whether to label GM products so that consumers can be given a choice, or whether this will be unnecessary due to the production costs incurred, Mr. Ham emphasized.
Mr. Le Tien said that it will not prove simple to label GM products because to do this, it is necessary to assess the safety of products based on a scientific basis and an organization would be required to make such assessments.
In 2011, Vietnam will begin to grow GM plants and it is predicted that by 2020, 30-50 percent of arable land will feature GM plant cultivation. Along with efforts to improve the potential in terms of genetic technology and intensify the application of the global advances in this field, Vietnam must put in place appropriate regulations to control the bio-safety of GM products. This is an important prerequisite for developing GM plants in Vietnam.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is drafting a decree on bio-safety relating to GM food. The draft decree requires all kinds of food that contain ingredients with five percent GM materials to be labeled.
Tags: Vietnam agriculture
Posted by VBN on Jan 26 2010. Filed under Agriculture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
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