The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9904/30/text/national1.html Floodgates open for modified food Date: 30/04/99 By DEBORAH SMITH The number of genetically engineered foods that may be sold legally in Australia before local safety assessment will more than double today as international biotechnology companies rush in last-minute applications for approval of their modified crops. Before tonight's deadline, Novartis Seeds and Monsanto will apply for 10 engineered crops, including potatoes, corn and sugarbeet, with the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA). This is in addition to the eight applications for engineered crops already received since 1997. These 18 engineered crops could be present as ingredients in hundreds of processed foods sold in Australia, such as bread, pasta, sauces, soya drinks and confectionery. Many Australian companies do not know if the foods they sell contain genetically engineered ingredients. There is no requirement for companies to identify on labels the presence of those ingredients. Mr Bob Phelps, a gene technology critic, who is director of the GeneEthics Network, said the flood of last-minute applications meant Australia had lost a "fantastic opportunity" to keep its food free of genetically engineered ingredients and win overseas markets that were increasingly wary of the technology. Biotechnology companies had been given nine months' notice that their modified foods had to have been assessed as safe by the food authority by today if they were not to become illegal for sale from mid-May. By the end of last month, only two foods - Monsanto's Roundup Ready soyabeans and Ingard cottonseed oil - had been approved as safe. The Australian and New Zealand Health ministers criticised technology companies for being "unacceptably slow" in applying for safety assessments. But the ministers decided to change the rules and give interim approval to modified foods while their safety was assessed by ANZFA as long as an application had been lodged by today's deadline and the foods had safety clearance from an overseas authority. Novartis Seeds will submit applications for two maize varieties engineered to produce the insecticide BT, and a sugarbeet resistant to the herbicide Roundup Ready. Monsanto will apply for three varieties of engineered potatoes, two of corn, one of cotton and one of sugarbeet. AgrEvo applied for a herbicide-resistant canola in March and a herbicide-resistant corn two weeks ago. Mr Nic Tydens, a Monsanto spokesman, commended the "flexibility" shown by Australian authorities in giving companies extra time. He said Monsanto's last-minute applications ensured that all its genetically engineered crops which might be added to foods sold in Australia had met the legal requirements. He said the latest applications were for minor crops, new crops or crops which had previously diverted to the US. Mr Phelps said approval by an overseas authority did not guarantee the safety of "unassessed and unlabelled foods ... allowed in on the say-so of trans-national chemical companies". Dr Geoffrey Annison, scientific director of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, said he was confident that all genetically engineered ingredients sold in Australia would be covered by applications from the biotechnology companies by tonight's deadline. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
