The trade & industry department’s draft regulations on the labelling of genetically modified (GM) food in terms of the Consumer Protection Act have come under fire. Anti-GM lobby groups the Africa Centre for Biosafety (ACB) and Safeage have initiated a petition against the regulations, which they say are “weak and undermine the consumer’s right to know, while addressing the needs of big business instead”.
But pro-GM group AfricaBio says the petitioners’ proposals, if accepted, would increase the cost of food.
The petitioners say the draft regulations apply to only three GM food types — maize, soya beans and imported canola oil — and would thus not cover GM potatoes and GM salmon if they are eventually introduced in SA.
“We want the regulations to specify that any new GM food crop approved will also be covered by the regulations,” says the ACB’s Haidee Swanby.
The draft regulations also exempt food with less than 5% of total GM content from labelling. The lobbyists want this lowered to 1% of each GM ingredient in a product. “A 5% threshold denies us our right to know and is misleading. Consumers will be under the false impression that food containing less than 5% GM content is actually GM-free.”
It’s feared the draft regulations create a loophole for companies to get away with an ambiguous label, such as “May contain GM”.
AfricaBio executive director Wally Green, on the other hand, believes the regulations are too strict. “To determine a 5% threshold level will increase the cost of food ... by between 10% and 20%. The testing is very expensive and as the level to be detected decreases, say down to 1%, so the costs increase.”
He says to establish a level of 5% the protein content of a foodstuff has to be analysed. Maize starch, maize syrup sweeteners, canola oil, cotton oil and sugar (from beet or cane) are examples of products that can be grown with GM technology but cannot be accurately analysed or labelled because they do not contain detectable protein.
“Attempting the test could yield a false negative or positive. How does this give consumers a choice?” he asks.
© BDFM Publishers 2010
