By Uma Sudhir
Indian supermarkets may soon be flooded with genetically modified, or
GM, food products made of corn, soya and canola oil. An amendment last month
did away with all import restrictions on GM foods, whose impact on health is
still not fully known. Also, there will be no labels to allow people to
decide whether they want to eat genetically modified food or not.
GM foods are derived from plants and animals that have been
irreversibly changed by introducing an alien gene into their DNA.

Activists point out that Europe, for instance, has been steadily
turning its back on GM foods, and in the last year, at least 10 new
countries have banned GM foods from their tables and fields because of the
potential health risk.

''In these countries where GM food consumption is high, it is already
a cocktail situation. You cannot really correlate the increase and the
skyrocketed number of allergies in the UK to the fact that they are now
consuming GM soya on a large scale,'' said Kavita Kurungati, Centre for
Sustainable Agriculture.

In the UK, in 1999, when GM soy was first imported, soy allergies
jumped from 10 per cent to 15 per cent in the sampled population.

Big monopoly corporations in countries like the US and Canada, who
control the food industry and are looking for new markets, are the ones that
are pushing for the introduction of GM foods.

In the US, 80 per cent of all corn, 90 per cent of soybean and more
than 50 per cent of canola is from GM.

''There is no mechanism to find out approved and unapproved varieties.
Even our labs cannot detect even the approved varieties, so we have to be
extremely careful in allowing imports'', said Ramesh Bhat, Nutrition
Scientist.

The products to look out in India now, with possible GM content,
include infant formula, cereals, mayonnaise, crackers and chips, salad
dressings, soya sauce or even tomato sauce, edible oils, candy, ice-cream,
frozen yoghurt etc which have imported soy, maize, corn and canola
derivatives.

The Environment Ministry has said ensuring the safety of human and
animal health is not within its mandate and the Health Ministry has not
managed to put in place a mandatory labelling requirement for all GM foods
produced or imported into the country.

Therefore, the consumer's right to know, right to safety and
regulation has all gone for a toss.

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