Print This PageHot Issue - Review of Food Labeling Laws
In October 2008, the Australian and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council announced a comprehensive review of food labelling, with the terms of reference for the review determined in May 2009, but as yet not made publicly available. Anti-GM activists have indicated that they will use the review to argue for changes to the current GM food labelling regime.
It is important to note that foods sold with GM ingredients in Australia are safe. All these ingredients undergo a rigorous safety assessment by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) prior to being allowed on the market, including public consultation and scientific review. FSANZ is considered one of the world’s foremost food regulators. GM foods have been approved for sale and eaten safely in Australia, and around the world, for over ten years. It is estimated that over 1 trillion meals have been consumed over the past decade without any adverse effects. As such, the labelling of GM food in Australia is not a safety issue, but rather an issue of consumer choice.
Currently, all food containing GM material sold in Australia must be labeled as containing GM. However, there is a one percent threshold for the unintended presence of already approved GM ingredients in a non-GM commodity before these labelling requirements are triggered. This recognises that there could be some accidental mixing of these commodities, based on the reality of agricultural supply chains and global trade. This reality has been recognised by a range of governments around the world that have implemented similar GM labelling regimes. Two examples of this are the European Union with a threshold of 0.9 percent, and Japan with a much greater five percent threshold.
Foods that do not contain altered DNA, such as highly refined oils and sugars, as well as animals fed GM stockfeed, are also exempt from labelling requirements. Any labelling system for these products would have to rely on a documentation process, which would not be economically feasible and could add to the cost of consumer goods at the checkout. In addition, there would be no additional consumer choice because the end products are identical.
The plant biotech industry strongly supports requirements for accurate and informative product labels that communicate information that is relevant to health, safety and nutrition. But as stated before, labelling of GM ingredients in Australia is a consumer choice issue, not a safety one. A series of international and local consumer surveys has also found that Australian growers can feel confident that consumers around the world are happy to continue to eat GM food. People are much more interested in the fat, sugar and salt content of their food than whether it has any GM content.
We hope that more time will be spent during the upcoming Review considering these issues of more immediate concern to the Australian public. GM labelling has already been extensively debated here, and FSANZ has only recently finished conducting an internal review of its policy. More, of course, will be known when the Terms of Reference are made public in the near future.
