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It lies in the inability to find a balance between addressing palpable concerns regarding health and safety concerns over GM food products, and our need to facilitate unfettered ‘progress’, both economically and with respect to international diplomacy.

Till recently, GM food clearances were under the purveyance of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC).

However, in a drastic, paradigm shift last year, the Government of India issued a notification which came into effect September, 2007, withdrawing all existing regulatory overseeing on the import of GE foods.

Processed GM foods will now be monitored and regulated by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, which was established under the new Food Safety and Standards Act.

However, despite having been passed in the Lok Sabha as long ago as July 2006, the Government is yet to take a concrete step forward towards the enforcement of the Act.

As of now, the development in Fall 2007 allows the import of GE foods without the importing agencies having to take permission from regulatory agencies, as has been the case so far.

Furthermore, the rule merely proposes that the imported GM food is indicative of having been cleared for marketing and use in the country of origin; thus no verification test is mandatory for the importing country.

The new notification will, in effect, provide unrestricted entry to untested foods since imported GM food does not have to be labelled. Finally, the proposed rules in India do not mention punitive action, (in contrast with the EU rules on the subject, which are clear).

This makes labelling exercises almost a figurative gesture with no real legal deterrent. On the domestic front, there are concerns regarding GM food products as well.

As of September 2007, the GEAC will now be looking only at living (modified) organisms. There are problems here.

For instance, vegetable oil containing GM cotton would be considered free of toxic effects only if double refining is carried out.

However, local manufacturers are known to avoid refining due to the high costs involved. Testing issues and the lack of facilities in India to do so currently, resurface as major stumbling blocks.

Also, currently in India, there is an absence of a legal regime for liability and redress on GM food issues as India has still not introduced a law on liability for this sector, even though it is required to do so by the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.

Human safety from GM foods has been a matter of grave concern. After GM soy was introduced in the U.K., cases of allergies went up.

Also, with respect to the environment, GM and non-GM crops can combine through cross-pollination and mixing of the seeds.

Environmental groups suspect that the import of products that contain soy, corn, canola or cotton seed ingredients could possibly be genetically modified to a great degree. These are all concrete concerns that need to be addressed.

Since the US does not segregate GM products from non-GM ones, consumer advocacy groups and environmental organisations such as the Delhi-based Gene Campaign and Voice, are of the opinion that the U.S. has consistently blocked international legislation on labelling at various multilateral forums such as the United Nations’ Food Standards Committee and Codex Committee on Food Labelling and with the WTO, driving a discriminatory agenda on food safety norms.

The threat ensuing from an unfettered, unmonitored system of importing GM food products, coupled with paradoxical laws and the delayed implementation of stringent policies, could potentially lead to a dangerous scenario.

GM foods infiltrate our markets as well as our agricultural fields in a juggernaut of uncontrolled possibilities and mutations, threatening the collective health, environment and economy of our country.

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