http://www.genetic-id.com/debate/index.htm
The Worldwide Debate
Over GMO Foods
Three Key Disagreements
Effects on Business
The Non-GMO Markets Continent by Continent
In the last year of the
second millennium, the rapid spread of genetically modified (GMO)
food has given risen to a worldwide debate. It is a
debate with powerful ramifications
politically and economically, as well as in terms of
health, the environment, and ethical
issues about science and its side effects.
At this point, strong consumer resistance to GMO
foods has sprung up in Europe, Japan,
Korea, Thailand, India, Australia and New Zealand.
This has led to political and economic
hostilities between governments in these regions and
the government of the United States,
which has strongly backed the development and use of
genetic modification in the food
supply.
Three Key Disagreements
The technical aspects of the debate are complex, with
credentialed scientists on both sides
of the argument (see Pros and Cons). But three key
issues have emerged as the debate has
become increasingly public:
1.THE NATURE OF GENETIC
ENGINEERING: Proponents of GMO food maintain
that
genetic modification of DNA is only an extension of genetic
evolution through
natural
reproductive means. They point out that genetic engineering is
not
restricted
to the genes already within a particular species, but that it has
access to a
much wider
choice of genetic material, thus allowing improvements to a
species not
otherwise
possible. However, critics of GMO food say that genetic
modification of
plant DNA
is unnatural, creating in the laboratory what could never happen
in
nature. In
Britain, the Advertising Standards Authority decided that the
"extension
of natural
evolution" argument is sufficiently misleading that biotech
companies
should not
use it in their advertising. The more emotional critics sum this
argument up
in the phrase "Frankenstein Food." It is this deep
disagreement over
the
essential nature of GMO food that underlies the entire debate.
2.EFFECTS ON PHYSICAL
HEALTH: Proponents of GMO food point out that more
than a
thousand scientific studies have been done to assess the effects
of GMO foods
on physical
health. They repeatedly maintain that there is no evidence to
suggest
that GMO
foods harm human health. In markets where resistance to GMO food
is
strong,
however, critics argue that all the health-related research on
GMO food has
been done
on animals, and almost all by the biotech companies themselves.
They
say that
there is no evidence GMO food harms human health because there is
no
such
evidence on human health at all--no studies have been done.
Underlying this
disagreement
is the assumption by proponents that GMO food should be
"innocent
until
proven guilty," and the assumption by critics that GMO food
should be
proven safe
before it is marketed.
3.EFFECTS ON THE
ENVIRONMENT: Proponents make the case that GMO crops
are
"substantially equivalent" to conventional crops. The
properties of the crops
are
sufficiently similar that no harm to the environment should
ensue. But critics
argue that
corn (maize) which has been genetically modified to act as an
insecticide,
poisoning the insects which eat it, is hardly "substantially
equivalent"
to
conventional corn. They point out that no environmental impact
study has ever
been done
on any GMO crop. It is the uncertainty caused by potential and
unpredictable
environmental damage that has driven the most extreme activists
to
burn GMO
crops in the field.
Effects on Business
Throughout 1999, the GMO debate has steadily
escalated, and the demands from non-GMO
markets have become increasingly stringent.
Businesses in the food industry have had to
react with increasingly dramatic steps to meet the
escalating demands. At first, an exporter
from North America to Europe, for example, could
offer verbal assurances that the
shipment was non-GMO. Then, to fulfill many
contracts, it became necessary to provide at
least one DNA test result demonstrating a low level
of GMO contamination. By this time,
however, buyers are increasingly demanding systematic
certification programs, with
independent assessment of the exporter's ability to
segregate non-GMO from GMO
products, and scientific testing at key control
points in the process. In such a rapidly
changing environment, it is increasingly important
for farmers, shippers, processors and
manufacturers to make specific contractual
arrangements with their buyers. Without a
clear understanding in each contract about how the
GMO issue is to be handled, suppliers
stand to be victimized by escalating requirements.
The Non-GMO Markets Continent by Continent
EUROPE: In the fall of 1998, the European Union
adopted the world's first regulation
demanding that GMO foods be clearly labeled, to allow
consumer choice. On October 21,
1999, the European Union adopted a 1% threshold,
meaning that it was only those foods
that contain more than 1% GMO in any ingredient that
have to be labeled as containing
GMO. As yet, no governmental regulation has
established the threshold below which foods
could be labeled "non-GMO," but scientific
constraints indicate that such a threshold will
most likely be "less than 0.1%".
ASIA: The world's largest food importing nation,
Japan, is the leading non-GMO market
in Asia. The government has announced a labeling
regulation similar to Europe's, with the
threshold yet to be specified, and consumer desire is
strong for non-GMO food, at the
tightest standard that is scientifically practical.
The Korean legislature has similarly
adopted a labeling registration, and Thailand is
exploring the concept of "GMO free"
zones within which to grow non-GMO crops for the
foreign markets that demand them. In
India, the issue has been hotly debated and GMO test
crops have been destroyed by
activists. As an extension of a long-standing
national distrust of foreign domination, many
Indian politicians have expressed concern that
foreign biotech companies would gain
control of India's food supply, thus compromising the
nation's sovereign status. China is
the unknown quantity in Asia, with its intentions and
activities on the GMO issue largely
unknown.
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: The Health Ministries of
Australia and New
Zealand have agreed on labeling, in principle, and
are considering what would be the
world's toughest regulation. As proposed, the
regulation mandates that wholly modified
foods would have to be identified in the brand name,
that processed foods would need their
GM components clearly marked in the ingredients list,
and that even highly refined foods
such as sugars and oils would be included in the
labeling regulations. Segments of the
Australian food industry are organizing systematic
non-GMO certification programs, with
an eye to taking market share in Japan and Europe.
SOUTH AMERICA: Argentina's farmers have aggressively
adopted GMO technology, but
in Brazil court decisions have held up the commercial
planting of GMO crops. Several
provinces of Brazil have decided to become GMO-free
zones regardless of what the national
decision turns out to be, partly on ethical grounds
and partly to have an advantage in
international trade in non-GMO markets such as Europe
and Japan. Brazil is the world's
second-largest exporter of soybeans (second to the
United States) and experts in the GMO
issue feel that Brazil's future course will have a
major impact on the biotech industry
worldwide.
NORTH AMERICA: In the United States and Canada, GMO
foods have been widely
grown and marketed to the public with, until
recently, little publicity and little public
knowledge. The media only became interested in the
issue in the late spring of 1999 when a
study in Nature showed that pollen from GMO corn
sickens and kills larvae of the
monarch butterfly. Since then, the issue has begun to
evolve as it has in other markets.
Baby foods manufacturers such as Gerber's and Heinz
have been the first to announce
plans to produce non-GMO products, and consumer and
environmental groups such as
Greenpeace and the Sierra Club have publicly targeted
the GMO issue. Major media such
as the Washington Post and the New York Times have
covered the issue extensively,
including stories critical of the FDA's handling of
GMO approvals. Although it is not yet
known if public sentiment in North America will turn
against GMO food as strongly as it
has elsewhere, food industry businesses are preparing
contingency plans.
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