Agenda Item 5.3 Conference Room Document 14
English only

second fao/who global forum of food safety regulators

Bangkok, Thailand, 12-14 October 2004

National Capacity Elements Required to Ensure the Safety of Genetically Modified Organisms and Genetically Modified Foods

(Prepared by Consumers International)

Introduction

Consumers International has surveyed its 250 member organisations regarding their top priorities among food safety issues, and the most important concern, by far, among these consumer organisations world-wide, is genetically modified (GM) foods. Governments around the world also are grappling with whether to accept imports of GM foods and/or to allow the release of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs--plants, animals including fish, and micro-organisms) into their environments.

In CI’s view, governments must assure themselves and consumers that GMOs and GM foods derived from them are safe, for health and the environment, under the specific conditions of use in the specific country, before allowing those organisms and foods to be commercially deployed or offered for sale within their borders. Countries facing import or approval decisions need sufficient capacity in the areas of adequate regulations, agencies, and technical facilities such as laboratories, personnel and budget in order to make informed choices in this regard. To facilitate and focus capacity-building efforts related to GM foods, CI offers this CRD, based on its own expertise and the experiences of its members in many ongoing national debates over GM foods, which enumerates the various capacities we believe all governments require in order to make sound policy decisions on this topic.

Needed Capacities

Capacities governments should have in place to effectively ensure the safety of GM foods and GMOs include the following elements:

1. Regulatory capacity. Countries need laws/regulations that would require:

2. Human and institutional capacity to reliably implement and enforce the laws and regulations outlined in Section 1, including:

3. Budgetary capacity.

Sufficient funds must be provided to carry out all of the activities listed in Section 1 and Section 2. These costs can be substantial, especially for countries that currently lack, or have only some elements of, the needed legislation, institutional framework, scientific facilities, and trained workforce.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Any country that needs to assess GM foods for consumption by their population and/or to approve GMOs for release into their environment, must have sufficient capacity in a wide number of areas—legislation, institutions, technical facilities, human resources, and the budget—to meet all the enumerated needs. Many countries, and particularly developing countries, currently lack the needed capacity and may also lack the financial resources to develop the proper capacity. CI believes that national governments are in the best position to judge their own readiness to evaluate GM foods and GMOs. We further believe that governments that do not feel capable at present of ensuring themselves and their citizens that such foods and GMOs are safe, in their own national context, are fully justified if they decide not to accept the risks (i.e. to exclude GM foods/GMOs from their national food supply). Given that many developing countries also face other serious food safety and food security problems, governments must assess the relative priority of putting limited resources into building capacity to assess GM foods. Many countries may legitimately have higher priorities for the use of whatever resources they have.

Consumers International therefore recommends:

  1. That national governments in developing countries, international agencies and developed countries working to build capacity, and other interested parties, consider all of the various parts of capacity to regulate GM foods and GMOs listed here as essential elements, when seeking to build capacity for this task;
  2. That the principle of national self-determination be respected, and that countries that currently do not have the capacity to effectively regulate GM foods/GMOs, and that may also have other serious national food safety capacity-building needs, not be subjected to trade challenges and other forms of international pressure that would tend to distort their national allocation of scarce food-safety resources toward preparedness to accept GM imports. Such pressures serve neither the goal of international harmony nor the interests of consumers in the affected countries.