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CSE study exposes rampant illegal sale of GM-processed foods in India
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Saturday, 28 July, 2018, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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In a first study of its kind for India, New Delhi-based research and advocacy body Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has exposed the large-scale illegal presence and sale of genetically-modified (GM) processed foods in the country. Without the approval of FSSAI, the production, sale and import of these foods is banned in the country.
CSE’s Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML), which conducted this study, tested 65 food products available in Indian markets – 32 per cent of these were found to be GM-positive. These food products were purchased randomly from retail outlets in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), Punjab and Gujarat. Both imported (35) and domestically-produced (30) samples were tested; imported samples fared worse: 80 per cent of the products which were found to be GM-positive were imported.
The products which were found to be GM-positive include infant food, edible oil and packaged food snacks. Most of these are imported from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. These products were produced from or contained soy, cotton seed, corn or rapeseed (canola), which are renowned GM crops across the globe.
Releasing the results of the study in New Delhi, Sunita Narain, director-general, CSE, said, “Our government says it has not allowed the import of GM food products. Then how is this happening? We have found that laws are not the problem – the regulatory agencies are.”
Adding to this, Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, CSE, said, “We had been hearing about the presence of illegal GM food in India, and decided to do a reality check by testing processed foods. We were shocked to know the scale in which GM foods have penetrated the Indian market. The regulatory authorities are to blame here – FSSAI has not allowed any GM food on paper, but has failed to curb its illegal sales.”
What is GM?
“GM products, especially food, raise a crucial question of safety, a question of how safe they are. The jury is still out on this,” said Narain. This is because GM food involves taking genes (DNA) from different organisms and inserting them in food crops. There is a concern that this foreign DNA can lead to risks such as toxicity, allergic reactions and nutritional and unintended impacts.
Most countries in the world, including India, have decided to take a precautionary approach to GM food. They have set stringent regulations for approval and labelling. The European Union (EU), Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and South Korea have made it mandatory to label GM food so that consumers have a choice about what they are eating.
CSE’s findings
GM food contains foreign promoter and terminator genes. Over 90 per cent of GM crops in the market contain promoter genes like 35S promoter of cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) and FMV promoter of figwort mosaic virus, and NOS terminator of Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Using quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR), CSE’s lab screened the food products to ascertain if they had a combination 35S promoter, NOS terminator and FMV promoter.
The key findings of the study are:
• Thirty-two per cent (21 out of 65) of the food product samples tested were GM-positive. About 80 per cent (16 out of 21) of those which tested positive were imported. These were made of or used soy, corn and rapeseed and were imported from Canada, the Netherlands, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and the United States
• Fifty-six per cent (nine out of 16) of the oil samples, 25 per cent (10/39) of the packaged food samples and 25 per cent (two out of eight) of infant food samples were GM-positive
• The CSE lab also tested five samples of cottonseed oil from India. All tested positive. This is because BT cotton is the single GM crop that has been allowed for cultivation in the country. Said Bhushan, “But this should worry us. Firstly, no permission has been given for the use of GM cottonseed oil for human consumption. Secondly, cottonseed oil is also mixed in other edible oils, particularly vanaspati, which means we are consuming it without knowing.”
• GM contamination was found in infant food, sold for children with medical ailments, including allergies. Two products by Abbott Laboratories, the American healthcare company, were found to be GM-positive. One was for lactose-intolerant infants and the other was a hypoallergenic (to minimise the possibility of an allergic reaction). Neither product had any label warning parents that this food contained GM ingredients
• Other than edible oil, no processed food sample manufactured in India was found GM-positive
• Sixty-five per cent (13 out of 20) GM-positive samples did not mention anything about GM on their labels. These include the following:
• Canola oil brands (Farrell imported from the UAE by Jindal Retails (India) Pvt Ltd; Hudson from the UAE, marketed by Dalmia Continental Pvt Ltd and Jivo imported from Canada by Jivo Wellness Pvt Ltd) and cottonseed oil brands from India (Ankur, Ginni, Tirupati and Vimal)
• Packaged foods like Pancake syrup original and Popcorn Hot N’ Spicy (both products of American Garden – imported in India by Bajoria Foods Pvt Ltd); FrootLoops (a sweetened multigrain cereal from Kellogg’s imported by Newage Gourmet Foods) and Crispy corn snacks from Bugles (distributed by General Mills Inc, USA, and imported by Newage Gourmet Foods)
• Three products made false claims suggesting that no GM ingredient was used. These were Candrop Canola oil from Canada (imported by Century Edible Cooking Oils Pvt Ltd); Mori-nu silken tofu from the United States (imported by Olive Tree Trading Pvt Ltd), and PromPlus sweet whole kernel corn from Thailand (imported by Guru Kirpa Impex)
• Four products that carried labels of genetic engineering technology were Butter and Garlic Croutons from Mrs Cubbison’s; Corn puffs by Trix (distributed by General Mills Sales Inc, USA); Original syrup from Aunt Jemima (distributed by Quaker Oats in the United States), and Dark corn syrup from Karo, US. All four products were imported by Newage Gourmet Foods
What do the laws say?
• The Environment Protection Act (EPA) strictly prohibits import, export, transport, manufacture, process, use or sale of any genetically-engineered organisms except with the approval of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India
• The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, prohibits the import, manufacture, use or sale of GM food without FSSAI’s approval
• The Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 mandate that GM must be declared on the food package
• The Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992, have stated that GM food cannot be imported without the permission of GEAC
• Anyone who imports, manufactures, uses or sells GM food is liable to be prosecuted under the above Acts
FSSAI has now issued a draft notification on labelling, which includes GM food. Said Amit Khurana, programme director, food safety and toxins, CSE, “The FSSAI notification says that any food that has five per cent or more GM ingredients, shall be labelled, provided this GM ingredient constitutes the top three ingredients in terms of percentage in the product. The exemption limit of five per cent is very relaxed compared to other countries such as the EU, Australia and Brazil,which have limits at or below one per cent.”
“But there is a catch. It is very difficult for the government to quantify the GM content in all foods. The tests are prohibitively expensive and technically cumbersome. This means that the regulatory agency is asking companies to self-declare and say that they are within the five per cent limit, and therefore, need not carry the label of GM,” he added.
Bhushan said, “The draft GM labelling regulations shows the double standard of FSSAI. On one hand, FSSAI has set stringent conditions for labelling organic food, which is a safe and healthy. On the other, it is proposing to give a huge exemption for labelling GM food, safety of which has been a matter of concern.”
What does CSE recommend?
• The FSSAI must identify all GM products being sold in the market and prosecute companies and traders responsible
• It must set up a safety assessment system for approval of both domestic and imported GM foods
• The limit for GM labelling exemption should be set at one per cent GM DNA and not on the basis of weight of ingredients. Only unintentional contamination should be exempted
• FSSAI should adopt qualitative screening [such as through quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)] as an enforcement tool and the onus of proving unintentional presence should be on the food manufacturer. It must set up laboratories to screen GM foods for effective monitoring
• A symbol-based label such as GM should be displayed on the front of packs which carry GM food, like the green tick along with the words Jaivik Bharat proposed for organic food
Narain said, “In 2008 (updated in 2012), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had issued guidelines for determining safety of such food. It cautioned that there is a possibility of introducing unintended changes, along with intended changes, which may in turn have an impact on the nutritional status or health of the consumer. Keeping this in mind, India should adopt a health-based precautionary principle approach to GM food regulation and labelling.”
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