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Regulate entry of GM foods, Ajit asks PM

Shahid K Abbas in New Delhi

Union Minister for Agriculture Ajit Singh on Monday urged Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to devise a legal framework to regulate the entry of genetically modified food and food products into India.

In a letter to the prime minister, Singh had also requested Vajpayee to impress upon the ministry of environment and forests to take urgent steps to issue notification under the Environment Protection Act, binding importers to declare whether the commodity being imported is of genetically modified origin.

In case it is, importers must be told to obtain a necessary permit from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee.

"As you are aware, in spite of agricultural biotechnology holding significant potential for ensuring food and nutritional security in developing countries, several concerns related to environment and health safety of genetically modified crops and food products derived from them have been raised from time to time in India and abroad," Singh wrote to the prime minister.

He asserted that several countries had acknowledged the potential and public concerns over GM crops and had enacted necessary legal framework to regulate the entry of genetically modified food products into their territories.

Singh emphasized that in the absence of an appropriate framework on the import of the GM food requiring importers to declare GM foods, the possibility of such items entering the domestic market cannot be ruled out.

"India imports huge quantities of soya oil from Argentina, Brazil and the United States. The use of transgenic soybean varieties is widespread in these countries and therefore there is a strong likelihood that the soya oil being imported by us from these sources has been extracted from transgenic soybean," he stated.

Singh wrote that some months ago he had requested the ministry of environment and forests to issue the necessary notifications, but no effective steps have been taken in this direction.

"With no response from the environment ministry on curbing import of genetically modified foods like soyabean oil, I have requested the prime minister to intervene in the matter," he told reporters.

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