Proper labeling of GM products important
Print Edition
Consumers in China can buy 17 types of genetically modified products, the People’s Daily said yesterday, but experts said it’s important for such GM products to be properly labeled.
They said all the approved GM products must have labels to clarify that they are such so as to safeguard the consumers’ rights to be informed and give them freedom of choice.
“People have the right to know what they are eating and the choice of whether to have GM food should be left to them,” said Cheng Tongshun, a professor with Nankai University.
According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, 28 countries have planted GM crops and globally 81 percent of soybeans, 35 percent of corn and 30 percent of oilseed rape are GM products.
China imports GM soybean, corn, cotton, rape and sugar beet as raw material, with GM soybean accounting for the largest import. China imported 58.38 million tons of soybeans last year and most of them were GM soybeans used as raw material for edible oil, the report said.
“In China, more than half of cooking oil consumption is soybean oil, and 90 percent of that oil is made from GM soybeans,” said Wang Xiaoyu, deputy secretary general of the soybean association of Heilongjiang Province.
Although China has a strict trademark mechanism for GM products, including clear labeling, many transgenetic products are still without such labels.
Cooking oil products of well-known brands are labeled GM or non-GM in several big supermarkets in Beijing and Tianjin, but for other products, including soy sauce and soy milk, the labels are missing, especially among those made by lesser-known manufacturers, Xinhua news agency has reported.
Nearly all fresh agricultural products lack GM information, although some fresh transgenetic agricultural products are popular at local markets.
Liu Junhai, a professor at Renmin University, said businesses, food and drug safety and health departments should cooperate to set up a data network on transgenetic products.
Meanwhile, dozens of scholars urged the central government to approve the commercialization of GM rice despite consumers expressing health concerns.
A total of 61 members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering wrote a joint letter to the government to encourage the roll out of the GM rice program as soon as possible.
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