A bulletin for the Australian Food Industry March 1997
Contents: How safe are fruit juices and acid foods? | Genetically modified soya | Foreign objects in foods
Genetically modified soya
Australia has been caught up in an increasingly vigorous debate about the labelling of genetically modified foods. The dispute centres around a strain of soya beans imported to this country from the United States. Research funded by the chemical company, Monsanto, led to the development of soya beans genetically modified to be resistant to the glyphosate-based herbicide 'Roundup', a Monsanto proprietary formulation.
GMS and conventional soya are being harvested and stored in the same way and are not separated by variety at any time in the distribution chain. There has been no perceived need in the past to separate different varieties but this pattern of handling means that segregation of the GMS, which makes up about 2 percent of the total US crop, poses a real problem and is a step that is not justified in the eyes of the industry. There is the further complicating factor that soya products find their way into a wide range of manufactured foods as oils, emulsifiers and flour.
The debate in this country, the European Union (EU), the UK and the USA is not so much about the safety of the GMS and its products as about how they should be labelled. The Federal Government's Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee (GMAC) has examined the GMS and found that it presents no environmental concerns. Earlier approvals by the Food and Drug Administration in the US, and the UK Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes attest to the safety of the GMS as a food. Consumer groups in this country claim that those overseas assessments are not sufficiently rigorous but it is unrealistic to expect that the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) will find substantially differently from its overseas counterparts on this question. Consumer organisations are also critical of the move by Australia's National Registration Authority (NRA) to seek an increase in the maximum residue limit (MRL) for glyphosate on imported soya beans from 0.1 mg/kg to 20 mg/kg. This application is now before ANZFA. The setting of an import tolerance in line with that recommended by the Codex Alimentarius would not change the domestic MRL from 0.1 mg/kg. This is a related issue but not central to the labelling argument which the consumer organisations are waging primarily on the 'right to know' basis.
While GMAC has cleared the modified soya products in Australia, it is ANZFA which has the responsibility for drawing up regulations regarding the sale and labelling of foods including those produced by genetic modification.
At the moment there are no regulations in the Australian Food Standards Code requiring genetically modified foods to be labelled as such. In its most recent information paper on food derived from gene technology, ANZFA is proposing that plants with changed agricultural characteristics, which would include herbicide tolerance, should be appropriately labelled although a decision would be made on each individual application. ANZFA is also proposing that processed foods produced using ingredients derived from genetically modified crops where the ingredients constitute more than 5 percent of the final product should be appropriately labelled. However, the ANZFA labelling guidelines suggest that refined vegetable oil from oil seed plants genetically modified to have herbicide tolerance would be exempt from labelling requirements.
The Australian Food Council contends that the GMS is a clear example of a genetically modified food which is substantially equivalent to the conventional one and should not require labelling. The Council view is that if labelling of genetically modified foods, especially those foods containing ingredients made by genetic modification, becomes mandatory, then in a few years virtually all processed foods would carry the label.
Alan Turner, a long time participant in and observer of food legislation debate in the UK and Europe, discusses the same subject in Food Manufacture, November 1996. He makes the point that 'insensitive introduction of the technology is bound to be counterproductive, more so when consumer benefits are diffused.' He goes on to suggest that the further away from the consumer the application of genetic manipulation, then the greater the likelihood that any benefit will accrue to the farmer and, perhaps, the environment. In this case, Monsanto will also be a beneficiary. The remoteness from the checkout of these benefits must present a problem in gaining consumer acceptance of the derived foods.
Where positive labelling is impractical, which Turner suggests is the case with GMS and its derived products, there may be a need for the initial provision of more information at point of sale than may ultimately be the case.
On the basis of existing UK and EU labelling guidelines, it is not necessary to label GMS as such. The Food Advisory Committee in the UK was asked by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to review its decision on labelling genetically modified foods following representations about GMS from consumer groups in that country. The Committee confirmed its previously stated position that producers of genetically modified foods or foods containing genetically modified material should be encouraged to provide information about their products voluntarily. Where labelling is impractical, the Committee encourages manufacturers and retailers to provide information in other ways.
The situation in the EU is still not clear although organised consumer protests against the sale of GMS have been greatest in European countries. The Dutch Public Health Ministry has, however, introduced its own legislation requiring that all food products made from GMS must be labelled: containing soy protein manufactured on the basis of modern biotechnology.
Both the food industry and consumers will be looking to ANZFA for a rapid resolution of the impasse which has developed in Australia. It seems unlikely that everybody will be happy with that resolution.
Food Science Australia
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