Shelving of GMO bill ‘must be explained’

THE AGRICULTURAL business sector and academics have demanded that the government provide a proper explanation to society about its decision this week to shelve the biological safety bill.

At a National Confederation for Safe, Secure and Sustainable Agriculture forum, a request to reconsider the bill regulating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) was again raised, on the grounds that Thailand needs a legitimate body to control the use of GMOs in order to boost the economy. The forum was hosted yesterday by the Thai Seed Trade Association and the Thai Feed Mill Association (TFMA).

The call came after the Cabinet aborted the bill’s consideration on Tuesday and sent it back to the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, thus delaying efforts to enforce a new law to regulate GMO technology.

TFMA president Pornsil Patchrintanakul told the forum he was very frustrated and shocked that the government had halted consideration of the biological safety bill, not least because it was something the government had promoted in the first place.

“I would like to ask the government to clarify its decision [to shelve the bill] to society, and the truth that our country really needs this law. It had very good reasons to draft this bill, but the reason to turn it down was very unreasonable,” he said.

“I think it could be the pressure from the GMO opposition side and NGOs that forced the government to turn around from its original intention,” he suggested.

Previously, the bill had met with strong protests from non-governmental organisations and organic farmers, who feared it would allow GMO liberalisation in the country and result in an environmental catastrophe, should GMO crops contaminate natural species.

Pornsil also said that as the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry was the responsible agency for the biotech safety bill, it should inform the public that this law would be very useful to the country, rather than its officials staying silent and letting the business sector and academics defend the law for them.

Wichar Thitiprasert, former Office of Agricultural Regulation director, told the forum that he was very disappointed to see the law, which would be the nation’s first tool to regulate all matters concerning GMOs, face such a fate.

“I don’t know if the decision-makers read the bill properly, because this bill is very good. It would not only control GM technology, which many of our neighbours have already adopted, but also boost our competitive ability on the global market, support domestic GMO researchers and help our farmers to have a better quality of life,” he said.

Greenpeace South East Asia, meanwhile, made a statement |suggesting the halting of the GMO bill would not truly solve the problem.

It described the government’s decision as “perfunctory problem-solving” and emphasised Greenpeace’s original demands to ban the planting of GM crops in an open environment, step up consumer protection in respect to |GM food, and let the representatives of those who would be affected by GMOs, organic farmers and biodiversity organisations take part in the bill’s revision committee.

“As [long as] the bill is still in the hands of transnational biotechnology conglomerates, its revision is useless and unnecessary,” said Watcharapon Dangsupa, the food and organic agriculture coordinator of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.