London (12th June 2006) – Inevitably, the record-keeping associated with “traceability”, keeping track of GM products from seed to fork, has a price. Somebody has to pay and that somebody is always in the end the consumer. It is, after all, supposedly to satisfy consumers that traceability for GM crops and foods has been put in place.

But which consumers should pay: those who want to know or those who don’t care? As things stand at present, most people who might be prepared to try GM food, or even not to give it a thought – the overall majority, by most sensible accounts – are not the ones who jump up and down in protest. They don’t much care. The consumers (and the producers catering for them) who want traceability are those who wish to avoid GM products and it turns out that, for the moment at any rate, they are the ones to pay.

The EU has recently been asking questions of the food industry, NGOs, government departments and traders.

It turns out that organic food products are being adversely affected by the measures because traders handling GM products along the commercial chain have to retain information on their suppliers and customers, as well as on the GMOs involved, in addition to abiding by certain labelling requirements. This is leading to a decline in the export of organic food containing soybeans since imported soybeans often inadvertently contain traces of GM material. This is because the exemption from labelling rules designed to cater for 'adventitious" and "technically unavoidable" GM presence in foodstuffs has its threshold at 0.9%, not zero.

Tracing the flow of GM organisms, as well as food and fodder products made from them, is governed by EU regulations. Apart from the final consumer, everybody in the food chain has to keep records.

But keeping records costs money. Aside from the campaigning groups whose life blood depends on it, who would much care if the onerous traceability obligations were quietly dropped?

Source:

GMO traceability method is hurting business, say trading partners. European Report (May 12th, 2006)

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