Screening a must to check GM food entry.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the nodal agency on genetically modified (GM) food, has in its last monthly meeting had given a “no objection certificate” to Doritos corn chips, a processed food product that had, not so long ago, been proven to contain GM corn. The recent approval came after the GEAC had a hearing on the product following its detainment by the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) at Nhava Sheva Port in Mumbai on the grounds of suspicion of it containing GM food.

This detention by the DGFT as stated in the GEAC meeting minutes was uploaded on their website on May 31, 2009, was based on a representation made by Greenpeace in this regard in the months following May 2008 when Greenpeace India had made public the scientific results of laboratory tests credibly done by an independent laboratory (GeneScan laboratories, Germany) on Doritos chips packets (purchased from markets in South Delhi). These tested samples were found to contain GM corn varieties, MON 863 and NK 603.

What makes the current GEAC approval especially shocking is that it was given without any testing, and hence no scientific evidence of the product being GM-free, but instead, on a written confirmation from the importer that the product did not contain GM corn.

This clearly makes a mockery of GEAC's regular claim that no GMOs (genetically modified organisms) have ever entered the country, that there have been adequate measures taken to prevent unintentional entry of GMOs and that there is an "appropriate" domestic regulatory system with public participation.

In 2006-07 alone, India received close to 2500 tonne of non-oil soya products- about 48% of which was from the US, which has a large quantity of GM soya without any labeling and segregation law in place. The same year, grain imports of corn were about 2800 tonne, and more than 72% of it was from Argentina and the US, both the countries produce a large quantity of GM corn.

The latest approval of Doritos consignment by the GEAC is therefore a link in the chain, instead of being an isolated event.

This is feeding to the fear, and quite reasonably, among safe food activists that the country is getting colossal quantities of GM food dumps. India has an almost non-existent system of screening for GM food at our ports.