To label, or not to label?

>> Local activists and UN diplomats get ready to clash over trade rules for genetically engineered foods

by JOHN EDMONDS

In the global supermarket, as in your local Provigo, consumers will not be able to identify which products are genetically engineered (GE) and which are not. At least, not if the Canadian government can help it.

Ottawa has opted for a voluntary labelling policy for GE food products in Canadian supermarkets, with the result that no food producer bothers to label their GE products--and consumers can't tell which is which, even though about 25 per cent of processed foods in Canada (including meat, flour, oils, and other staples, not to mention cookies and KD) contain GE products. Now, Ottawa is trying to push that same "don't have to tell" policy at the international level--to the dismay of the governments abroad, and activists at home.

Canada's position will be one of the main bones of contention to be diplomatically gnawed next week, when international delegations come to Montreal to attend the boringly named but globally relevant "Resumed First Session of the Extraordinary Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity for a Biosafety Protocol." The talks are being organized by the United Nations Environment Programme and the locally based UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

The Biosafety Protocol talks, which will run from January 24-28, will bring diplomats from over 100 countries to Montreal--not to mention a swarm of activists from across North America.

The political economy of mutant crops
Next week's talks are actually a continuation of the Biosafety Protocol meetings held in Cartagena, Colombia, last year. The Cartagena conference concluded in failure because of a conflict between the so-called "Miami Group" of nations (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Australia, the U.S. and chaired by Canada--all major agro-exporters) and the "Like Minded Group" (all developing nations), over whether shipments of bulk commodities for "food, feed or processing" containing GE products should be identified.

By all accounts, the issue of GE exports was completely unforeseen as little as a decade ago. During the days of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the first genetically modified organisms were just starting to creep around the lab. Now gentech is a fast-growing muti-billion dollar industry, and agro-exporters such as Canada have an interest in opening borders to GE products.

For developing nations, the Biosafety Protocol talks are critical if they hope to exercise any power over trade in GE foodstuffs. "Our position is that we should have control about what comes into our country," says Leon Jordan, First Secretary at the High Commission for the Republic of South Africa, which is a member of the "Like Minded Group."

Canada argues that other countries are free to impose their own restrictions on imports--but ignores the issue of how they could effectively do so unless the exporting country discloses which shipments contain GE products and which do not. The Canadian government states that the Biosafety Protocol exists only because developing countries lack the expertise necessary to deal with GE organisms on their own. In other words, Canada should be able to export whatever it wants; it should be up to the importing countries to figure out what's mutant and what's not.

According to John Herrity, one of Canada's lead negotiators for the Montreal talks, "[any] country can make its own determination of what imports they wish to restrict." But if they want to do so on the basis of some supposed risk, Herrity says, "then it has to be based on reasonable science." If the science was in dispute, Herrity told the Mirror, then the matter would "probably be resolved at the WTO."

All the world's a lab
Wait, did you say WTO? Whoosh! Here come the activists!

A coalition of activist groups--including the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, Biotech Action Montreal, and QPIRG--have organized their own bash to coincide with the Biosafety Protocol talks: "Importing Trouble: A Day of Events Looking at Genetic Engineering and Trade." The event, to be held on Saturday, January 22, at UQAM's Judith Jasmin Pavillion, will start with daytime workshops, followed at 7:30 p.m. by speakers Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians, Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech Century (but better known for his book The End of Work) and Chee Yoke Ling, a lawyer for the Third World Network.

"We want to stir people up," says Lorraine Craig of Biotech Action Montreal. "Failing that, we want to educate them, or failing that, at least pique their interest."

Activists have a plethora of concerns about genetic technology and GE foods, which they feel are being rushed to market prematurely. "Trade in these technologies should not be an option at this point," says Johanne Fillion, director of Greenpeace's Montreal office.

Says Fillion: "The human race and all nature is now part of a big genetic experiment," one she believes is being conducted, wittingly or not, by the biotech industry and their government and academic allies. :



For info about "Importing Trouble" demo & events, call 1-800-387-7177

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