Codex should address ethical, ecological concerns on GM foods

Posted: Monday, Sep 26, 2005 at 0131 hrs IST
Updated: Monday, Sep 26, 2005 at 0131 hrs IST

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: Negotiations on agriculture at Geneva did not make any progress. But apparently trade issues relating to genetically modified (GM) foods figured in the meeting of Codex taskforce in Makuhari, Chiba in Japan last week.

The five-day meeting of the Codex taskfore for foods derived from moderm biotechnology, which ended on September 23, centered more on trade and nutritional aspects of GM foods, almost ignoring the ethical and environmental aspects. India and Norway were in the forefront in demanding a discussion on these aspects when the issue of transgenic animals and fish came up. Norway is a major fish exporting country and had rightly raised the issue.

Codex is an inter-governmental body and has the responsibility in setting acceptable standards for food, which are often referred to as the base. But countries can adopt more stringent national standards, provided they are based on sound scientific reasoning. Global trade is generally affected not due to the standards set by Codex but due to the stringent sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) norms of the developed countries. Developing countries find it difficult to comply with norms of the developed world. In a way the easier Codex standards do not prove to be of much help in resolving disputes relating to SPS norms on food.

Trade in GMOs and GM food is a contentious issue. The dispute between two major trading blocs — European Union and US — on this is still pending before WTO. Codex was expected to intervene to resolve the issue, but does not seem to moving in this direction. Codex Alimentarius Commission is an inter-governmental body jointly launched by UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Health Organisation (WHO). Therefore, both FAO and WHO also have the responsibility of resloving this contentious issue. Public concerns about health and environmental safety of GM food and related ethical issues need to be effectively addressed on priority to resolve trade-related issues. But unfortunately Codex has begun ignoring these. A draft on transgenic animals prepared by Australia and other countries deliberately ignored the ethical aspects. When it came up for discussions there was a demand from many member countries to address these. The representatives from FAO and WHO then admitted, “Ethics are indeed important.” But they preferred to deffer discussions till the next meeting of the taskforce scheduled on November 27 to December 1, 2006. It was also proposed that FAO would conduct a workshop on ethical issues...

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