Andy Rowell, July 2000
Article originally appeared in The Big Issue South West & Big Issue North and can be accessed at Andy Rowell's Website
Contaminated
Over a year before the tabloids broke the story…
New research reveals that the food chain is heavily contaminated by genetically modified organisms. Can consumers still trust foods which claim to be GM-free? Exclusive by Andy Rowell.
The safety of British food has again been thrown into doubt by new research which shows that products labelled GM-free actually contain GM ingredients.
The Big Issue South West has exclusively obtained a report that shows that ten per cent of foodstuffs which claim to be from assured GM-free sources have been found to contain genetically modified DNA. At least one of the products tested was labelled organic. This means that people who think they are eating natural foods could be consuming GM-contaminated produce.
The investigation, by the Trading Standards division of Bristol City Council, checked forty products on general sale for undeclared GM ingredients. Council scientists examined everything from organic soya beans to veggie-burgers. Of the forty products sampled, ten per cent were contaminated with GM DNA. This was despite that fact that all the products tested contained soya from sources that were assured GM-free. All the products had supposedly already been tested by manufacturers to ensure that they did not contain GM ingredients over the current legal one per cent threshold.
Consumers are entitled to expect a food production system that commands public trust and confidence, says a spokeswoman for Bristol Trading Standards. But so far GM food producers have kept one step ahead of analysts. The Trading Officers have referred manufacturers of the contaminated produce to the relevant authorities, but because these samples, although scientifically valid, were informal, a prosecution is unlikely.
Local authorities are responsible for enforcing this, says a spokesman for the
Governments Food Standards Agency, but adds that it is difficult to ensure that something is completely GM-free. "Obviously you can't test everything and there is always some room for improvement".
These revelations, coming in a week which saw the safety of British food once again
questioned over BSE and scrapie, could seriously undermine consumer confidence in UK food labelling standards. "It sounds just like BSE again", says Professor Tim
Lang, Professor of Food Policy at Thames Valley University and author of a forthcoming book, Food Wars. "This makes a complete mockery of the reassurances given to consumers that they have a right to know, and that labelling will give them that information. It also seriously questions the capacity of governments to deliver on their promises".
The report highlights the shortcomings of regulations imposed by the British Government and the EU on food safety and labelling. Since 1997, when the Novel Food Regulations came into effect throughout the EU, food producers have had to inform consumers whether foodstuffs are genetically modified. Before this date,
any labelling was purely voluntary. The report shows the regulations to be ineffectual, and also highlights four other fundamental problems.
Firstly, the results show how difficult it is to be confident that the food chain is completely GM free, even when food manufacturers have been guaranteed by
suppliers that it is. This fact is even admitted by the GM industry itself. Advanta Seeds, the GM company which caused uproar earlier this year when its
non-GM oil seed rape seed was found to be GM-contaminated, says: "We have listened to reports of food retailers who claim to sell GM-free food. We have no idea what testing methods they use or whether their sampling techniques are sufficiently robust to substantiate their claims. We have heard that they test to the limit of detection but this is extremely misleading to the public since the products clearly cannot be guaranteed to be GM-free".
Clare Devereux, from the Five Year Freeze, a coalition of over three million people who are calling for a five year moratorium on the commercial growing of GM
crops and imports of GM foods, says: "As soon as you let GM into the system there will be contamination and you cannot ensure against it. We are very concerned that the process is breaking down and the regulations don't allow for consumer choice".
Secondly, even though consumers may have been reassured by the GM-free label until now, in reality the term is meaningless. The report notes: There is no legal definition of this phrase, although it is currently under consideration by the EU Commission.
The reports findings could also throw the reliability of organic labelling into doubt. The Soil Association, the leading organic certification organisation in the
UK, admits it cannot guarantee that its organic produce is GM-free. "No system can ever be 100 per cent secure", says a spokesman for the Soil Association's Certification Unit. "Possible contamination problems should be minimised by the procedures we require from processors and from growers. But that's why we distinguish by saying that organic food is non-GM, rather than GM-free. There's a subtle difference".
Thirdly, the report notes that while there may not be a legal definition yet, foodstuffs labelled GM-free are allowed by law to contain one per cent GM material. Trading Officers question whether the GM-free label should only be used on products which can be proven to contain no GM ingredients which is, in all likelihood, the interpretation put upon such a phrase by the man in the street or whether it should be permitted to be used on products that satisfy the one per cent rule.
Others agree that the one per cent rule is unacceptable. Michael Meacher, the Environment Minister, speaking at the Environment Select Committee
last week, said that 0.1 per cent was practical and that the Government would listen to the public to see if this level was acceptable. "Its something that the
public should have a major say in deciding", he said. This is positive news for anti-GM campaigners. "We have always said that the one per cent rule is totally
unacceptable to the UK public", says Pete Riley, Real Food Campaigner for Friends of the Earth.
Fourthly, and very significantly, the report also highlights deficiencies in the labelling of meat products. There is currently no requirement for animal feed to be labelled where it contains GM soya or maize and to the knowledge of this Section there are no proposals to introduce legislation in this field, says the report. So under the current rules, cattle can be fed on GM fodder throughout their lives, but producers do not have to mention this on meat packaging.
"We need a plough-to-plate identity system. We need to be able to track it all the way", says Dr Sue Mayer, Director of GeneWatch UK and member of the
Governments recently formed Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission. Mayer says the lack of regulation is typified by the lack of control
on GM food in animal feedstuff. "This is one of the biggest holes in the regulatory process. Not only is there no labelling, but there is no safety assessment
for using GM food in animal feed at all".
While the Bristol report highlights how inadequate the regulations are in protecting foodstuffs, further evidence has emerged of the inadequacies of legislation covering the growing of GM and non-GM crops. Last week the company at the centre of the GM seed contamination scandal, Advanta, admitted that its contaminated seeds had been grown in Canada at a distance of 4,000 metres from GM crops. This was five
times the Canadian legal minimum of 800 metres. In the UK, in contrast, the voluntary agreement for oil seed rape grown for seed is currently 200 metres, and just 0 metres for normal crops. The seed contamination scandal says Advanta, raises legitimate questions about the separation distances that should exist between GM and conventional crops to prevent unwanted cross-pollination from the GM plants.
Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South and a leading food safety campaigner says: "It was the fear of the safe food movement that if biotech companies couldn't win public minds they would corrupt the food chain. This risk will remain until we have a clear producer liability regime in place. That's why I have put down my GM Foods Producer Liability Bill. It cannot be left to the consumers or supermarkets or the retailers who buy in good faith that the produce is
GM-free. Britain says it signs up to the principle that the polluter pays, but as yet we have no mechanism to say that you are legally liable to pay for not only demonstrable damage done, but for all produce lost or withdrawn".
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