GMO Corn Tainting Filipino Food Supply

"Amidst continuing interception and seizures of illegal GMO corn varieties in Negros Occidental, Greenpeace today demanded that the Philippine Government issue an outright ban on all genetically-modified (GMO) food crops. Earlier this month, Germany became the sixth European country to declare the GMO corn MON810 illegal, which, along with other GMO corn strains similarly banned or found to be toxic in other countries, is approved as food and feed in the Philippines.

"GMOs have never been proven safe as food or for planting, but the Philippine government and the Department of Agriculture (DA) in particular have never disapproved any GMO application. In effect, the government is making Filipinos eat food which is banned for safety reasons in more stringent countries. This only proves that the country's GMO policy is shoddy and inadequate and should be reassessed. The approval for these GMO corn strains must be revoked and a moratorium on further GMO approvals upheld," said Greenpeace Genetic Engineering Campaigner Daniel Ocampo.

MON810, a Bt corn marketed commercially in the Philippines under the brand 'Yeildguard' and produced by chemical company Monsanto, is genetically altered with a gene from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis to produce its own toxic insecticide against the Asiatic corn borer. It was first approved in the country for commercial cultivation and for use in food, feed and processing on December 2002, despite strong opposition from farmers and environmental organizations. The approval for the GMO corn was renewed in 2007 despite increasing evidence of harmful environmental impacts.

Last April 14 German Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection announced that it has come to the conclusion "that there are legitimate grounds to accept that genetically modified corn from the MON810 strain constitutes a danger to the environment." The ministry based its decision on the safeguard clause from the European Union law (Directive 2001/18) which allows member-states to use the precautionary principle and prohibit GMOs in the light of new evidence."

ORIGINAL SOURCE: GreenPeace SEAsia