Greenpeace urges Central government not to settle for half hearted efforts on GM labeling

Greenpeace India welcomes the formal recognition by the Government of India of the need to label Genetically Modified foods so as to give the consumer a choice. This single line decision by the Central Government was published in a Gazette Notification dated June 5, 2012 by the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs. 1
Responding to the Notification, Shivani Shah, Sustainable Agriculture Campaigner, Greenpeace said that "While labeling does give consumer a chance for the avoiding genetically modified food in the market, what our Government seems to forget is that it is almost impractical in India where more than 90 per cent of our food is unprocessed and non-packaged and forms a chunk of the unorganised sector.”
Given their potentially serious and long-term adverse implications on health and the environment, she further opined that “India is already experimenting with the lives of its citizens by permitting GMOs into the environment through field trials. It is impossible to stop contamination from open field trials of GM crops that are being permitted in our country. The best way to ensure consumer sovereignty is to take a precautionary measure and stop any environmental release of potentially risky GM crops.”
Further, the gazette notification also lacks clarity on the details such as the threshold for the presence of GM ingredients. It mentions no mechanisms on how this will this be monitored, and whether this is applicable to both primary and processed foods.
In a recent RTI response the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India[FSSAI] under the Ministry of Health and family welfare, who is the nodal agency for labeling of GM food, had said that it is not looking after the labeling of GM food. In its response letter it was said that Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, who is the nodal agency for any environmental release of GM crops, is the responsible one. Interestingly GEAC in a RTI response at the same period said the opposite, putting FSSAI as the agency in charge of labeling rules.
Given that there is serious concerns on the potential impacts of GM crops to our food, farming and environment it is important that the government comes up with infallible plans on safeguarding the health of the citizens and that of the environment from GM crops instead of coming up with such half hearted efforts on GM labeling.

Whistleblower scheme: Food authority mulls wait & watch

The country’s top food regulator, Food Safety and Standard Authority (FSSAI) seems to be in no hurry to finalise the draft of the whistleblower scheme aimed to reward informants exposing food adulteration. This despite, its surveys reporting that contamination of food items including milk is common across the country.
In fact, the FSSAI has put on hold the draft guidelines stating that it is waiting for the Parliament to enact the “Whistleblower Bill,” which is yet to be discussed in the Rajya Sabha.
“For, it wants its scheme to be on the line of the proposed legislation whenever it is passed,” said a senior official in the Union Health Ministry which oversees the working of the autonomous body.
The draft guidelines prepared by the FSSAI follows the announcement of Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in February in 2011 to frame a whistleblower scheme to reward those who provide information against those indulging in adulteration of food. Azad had promised zero tolerance against the food adulterators.
The draft aims to encourage general public and employees to furnish information regarding unsafe food and malpractices within or outside the system. The whistleblowers and informants have been proposed to reward from the funds being made available to the State Governments under a Centrally-sponsored scheme.
However, after seeking public comments, the FSSAI has buried the draft under the carpet till the proposed national Bill is finalised.
The Whistleblower Bill  aims at establishing a mechanism to receive complaints relating to disclosure of any allegation of corruption or wilful misuse of power by public servants. But as it seems so as in the case of the national bill, the fate of the draft of the scheme will not see light of the day till then.
“The scheme would have at least served as some deterrent to the unscrupulous elements who have been using harmful chemicals in food items for commercial gains particularly during the period of major festivals,” said the official citing a similar scheme already implemented in the drug sector.
An analysis of the FSSAI surveys has revealed that food adulteration rates over the last three years have shown a steady increase. In 2008, 94,000 samples were examined of which over 8,300 were found to be adulterated (8.79%). In 2009, 1.13 lakh samples were examined of which 11.14% were adulterated. In 2010, 1.17 lakh samples were examined of which over 14,000 samples (12.65%) were adulterated.
A recent survey on milk had found that majority of the milk samples were of poor quality and also contaminated with toxic chemicals such as detergent and fats.