GLOBAL LABELLING AGREEMENT BLOCKED BY GENETIC ENGINEERING SUPPORTERS

10 May 2002

Halifax, Canada - Greenpeace today laid the blame for the failure to agree a global deal on labelling of genetically engineered (GE) food at the door of the main GE producing nations - the USA, Canada and Argentina. These three countries, which are producing 96 percent of the world's GE crops, have used their political and economic clout at the United Nations Codex Alimentarius committee meeting in Canada this week to block progress on global standards for food labelling (1).

The move is an attempt by these countries to protect their exports of GE crops and to justify their own lack of labelling for their own citizens by stopping the implementation of world-wide GE labelling rules. The GE industry and its political supporters are trying to deny millions of people the democratic right to choose what they eat. However the reality is that more than 35 countries around the world, including for example China, Australia, all of Europe, Saudi Arabia and Croatia already have laws either in place or announced, which require the labelling of food containing GE ingredients, or which restrict the import of GE crops (2).

"Citizens within both Canada and the US have been making their views known on this issue over recent years and consumer survey after consumer survey clearly highlight the demand for GE food labelling in these two countries. The lack of a global standard for GE food labelling does not and will not stop countries from unilaterally labelling GE foods, and as more and more countries do so the US and Canada will become increasingly internationally isolated on this issue." said Holly Penfound, Greenpeace GE campaigner attending the Halifax meeting.

Attempting to force other countries to deny their own citizens information on GE foods is a tactic that the US administration, for example, has been using ever more regularly. The Bush administration put economic and political pressure on China, Croatia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and New Zealand when they were making progress towards mandatory nationwide labelling and is even now preparing to launch a trade war over European plans to label all GE food.

As there are unknown and potentially irreversible risks for the environment and human health, Greenpeace demands the immediate cessation of deliberate releases of genetically engineered organisms into the environment. As long as they are still on the market, Greenpeace demands clear and mandatory labelling of all food products, containing or derived from such genetically engineered organisms even when they do not contain detectable DNA or proteins resulting from the modification (e.g. highly processed oils and sugars). The labelling system must be a process-based method of production labelling, including a reliable system of traceability throughout the whole production chain.

As it seems that the UN's Codex Alimentarius is not able to guarantee a reliable labelling system for GE food respecting the precautionary principle, Greenpeace appeals to governments to establish such a mandatory labelling system on a national level (3).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Greenpeace at the Codex meeting: Holly Penfound, Genetic Engineering Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada, Mobile: +1 416 723 9425;
Greenpeace Expert on Codex Alimentarius (in Switzerland), Bruno Heinzer, Mob: + 41 79 400 88 31

(2) More information on recent opinion polls in the US and Canada on web sites: http://www.greenpeace.us and http://www.greenpeace.can

(3) More than 35 countries have laws either in place or announced which require the labelling of food containing GE ingredients, or which restrict the import of some genetically engineered organisms. These countries combined include more than half the world's population.