Reuters | October 13, 1999 | Sonali Paul
MELBOURNE - Australia and New Zealand health ministers will, according to this story, decide next Friday how to enforce labelling rules for genetically engineered foods which could set a strict precedent for other nations.
The Australia and New Zealand Food Authority has proposed the regulations should come into effect about a year from now, which would be ahead of labelling regulations due to come into effect from April 2001 in Japan.
Edward Groth, the technical policy director of the Consumers Union of the United States, was quoted as saying, "The Australian policy right now is an important experiment to see how this mandate can be put into practice. It's unclear yet how far it's going to go, what practical problems they'll encounter and how they'll resolve them. It's a first step."
GenEthics director Bob Phelps was cited as saying the Australian and New Zealand regulations were unlikely to go as far as requiring labelling on all refined and processed foods and all restaurant and prepared meals, which is what the network sought, adding, "The food authority is saying certain refined and processed foods need not be included."
Australia and New Zealand Food Authority managing director Ian Lindenmayer was cited as declining to reveal the agency's recommendations or the estimated costs for the industry to meet the proposed rules, but he said an independent study showed fulfilling the rules could be expensive, adding, "But they (independent consultants) certainly provided confirmation that costs are a substantial consideration."
He said food companies would need about a year to take the steps needed to identify whether they were using ingredients which had genetically engineered material and said laboratory testing capacity was limited.
Groth and Phelps were cited as dismissing industry estimates that food labelling and the costs of segregating gene-modified foods would be enormous, with Phelps quoted as saying, "The costs will be quite manageable and minimal," pointing to the way wheat for pasta and wheat for bread were separated and the way organic foods were certified.
