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CHILE:
Defending
Consumers' Rights to Information
and Choice on GM Products
Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, (IPS) - Lilia
Lizama, a 60-year-old homemaker
in the capital of Chile, only
learned about the existence of
transgenic foods a few months
ago. ”I was at my sister's house
and the subject just happened to
come up. They told me that there
are foods that have been
modified and could cause
cancer,” she told IPS.
”I was shocked and scared,
because when I buy food, I have
no way of knowing if it's
natural or transgenic,” she
added.
The Chilean government does not
inform consumers about
transgenic foods nor does it
require that they be labelled as
such.
That is despite the fact that a
majority of people in this South
American country are opposed to
genetically modified foods, and
want any products containing
them to be clearly marked, as
demonstrated by a recent survey
released by the local chapter of
the international environmental
group Greenpeace.
Mandatory labelling of
transgenic food products was the
main demand put forward by the
non-governmental organisation
Consumers International (CI),
which made genetically modified
foods the focus of this year's
World Consumer Rights Day,
celebrated in 115 countries on
Tuesday.
Lizama's views are shared by the
majority of the 500 Chileans
interviewed by the Ipsos polling
firm in November 2004 in a
survey commissioned by
Greenpeace Chile.
According to the survey,
released Mar. 11 in Santiago,
53.5 percent of respondents know
about or have heard of
transgenic foods, 58.5 percent
would prefer not to consume
products that contain
genetically modified organisms (GMOs),
and 95.9 percent believe that
products containing GMOs should
be clearly labelled.
To publicise these findings,
Greenpeace Chile organised a
rally just metres away from the
La Moneda palace, the seat of
the national government in
Santiago. The demonstration
featured two life-sized puppets
representing President Ricardo
Lagos and Economy Minister Jorge
Rodríguez Grossi with their
hands over their ears.
Greenpeace and other
environmental groups accuse the
Economy Ministry, responsible
for the Biotechnology Policy
adopted in 2002 and the drafting
of a bill aimed at regulating
the sector, of failing to
include the general public in
discussions of this issue.
In Chile, the only regulation of
GMOs is based on a 1993
resolution passed by the
government's Agriculture and
Cattle Farming Service. The
decision authorised the
importing of transgenic seeds
for cultivation and subsequent
export, an activity that is
currently limited to less than
8,000 hectares of farmland.
There are no restrictions on the
importing of transgenic
ingredients or food products for
domestic consumption, nor any
requirements for products
containing GMOs to be labelled
as such.
These matters were to be
addressed through legislation
that the government was planning
to submit to Congress in 2004,
but which ended up being shelved
due to the opposition of
lawmakers from the ruling
centre-left coalition.
”The government has disregarded
all of our opinions, which is
why we have come here to present
it with the information revealed
by the survey, so that it can be
incorporated in the law that is
being handled behind closed
doors,” Juan Carlos Cuchacovich,
Greenpeace Chile's genetic
engineering coordinator, told
IPS.
According to José Vargas,
director of the CI Latin
American and Caribbean regional
office, ”When the government
began to study the transgenics
issue, it appeared to take a
real interest in the views of
civil society organisations, but
as the drafting of the bill
moved forward, we were shut
out.”
Consumers International, a
federation of 250 organisations
in 115 countries, chose World
Consumer Rights Day to step up
its global campaign against GMOs,
which kicked off last October in
Bangkok on the eve of the Second
Global Forum of Food Safety
Regulators.
”Organisations around the world
are using this day to call for
mandatory labelling of
transgenic foods, in compliance
with the public's right to
information and freedom of
choice,” Vargas commented to IPS.
In more than 100 countries,
including Chile, local groups
focused attention on this issue
by holding marches, press
conferences and other events and
distributing information to the
public.
Transgenic or genetically
modified foods are developed by
transferring genes between
unrelated species, for example,
from animals to plants. Often, a
bacteria or virus is used as the
vector to carry a new gene into
a cell.
The effects of this genetic
engineering on the environment
and human health have still not
been fully determined, although
the dangers already envisioned
include the development of
bacteria resistant to the
antibiotics most commonly used
in humans.
Last year, approximately 8.25
million farmers in 17 countries
planted transgenic crops,
according to the International
Service for the Acquisition of
Agri-Biotech Applications, an
industry-funded organisation.
The United States, Canada,
Argentina, Brazil and China
account for 96.5 percent of the
world's GMO crops, made up
primarily of soy, maize, cotton
and canola. There are no
requirements for the labelling
of transgenic foods in the
United States, Canada or
Argentina.
CI is pushing for the adoption
of mandatory comprehensive
labelling of genetically
modified foods by national
governments and the Codex
Alimentarius Commission, created
in 1963 by the United Nations
Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) and World
Health Organisation (WHO) to
develop food standards and
guidelines.
Moreover, the federation is
advocating the use of ”positive
labelling”, which identifies the
existence of genetically
modified content, as opposed to
”negative labelling”, which
denotes its absence (such as
”Free of GMOs”).
In addition, the regulations
should include meat and dairy
products from animals given feed
containing GMOs.
Vargas pointed to the rules
adopted by the European Union,
in force since October 2003,
which demand the labelling of
all foods containing, consisting
of or derived from genetically
modified ingredients, whether or
not these can be detected in the
final product.
”We believe that denying people
the opportunity to know what
they are eating is a lack of
democracy, because democracy is
built on the basis of
transparency and information,”
said Cuchacovich.
”The government should say why
it refuses to listen to the
public. Obviously, we have our
suspicions, because it seems to
us that there are major economic
interests behind all of this,”
he added.
Vargas noted that public
awareness on this issue is
limited in Chile, ”and that's
largely the government's fault,
because it hasn't developed any
informational or educational
programmes,” he said.
”Consumers have to be more
demanding when they make
purchases, we social
organisations have to continuing
publicising the data available
to us, and the authorities have
to design policies that respond
to the people's needs,” Vargas
stressed.
The lack of information and
awareness on the part of the
Chilean public also extends to
other issues affecting human
health, such as the use and
abuse of pesticides in
agriculture, hormones in poultry
farming and antibiotics in the
dairy industry, he added. |
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