Qatar considers introducing GM food-labelling law

Doha: Qatar may become the first Gulf country to issue legislation regulating the market for genetically modified food, local media said recently.

According to the local daily Peninsula newspaper the Supreme Council for Environment and Natural Reserves (SCENR) is seeking approval to form a committee that will address the flow of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and related health concerns.

Qatar is part of the International Biosafety Protocol of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and is now planning to issue new legislation on GMOs to conform to the protocol requirements.

Andi Freimuller, a genetic engineer at Greenpeace International who met with SCENR officials here last week, told the daily that Qatar is overflowing with unlabelled genetically modified products.

Choice

"Our demand is to ban the GMO stuff. If not, the customers should be at least allowed to make their choice", he was quoted as saying.

According to Qatar's English daily Gulf Times in December 2006, Greenpeace commissioned the testing of 35 products containing maize currently sold in supermarkets in Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait.

Some 40 per cent of the tested samples revealed contamination with GMOs. In Qatar, four out of ten products contained GMOs. As is the case in other GCC countries, none of the products that contained GMOs was labelled, as these countries do not require compulsory labelling of such products. In early 2006, Greenpeace discovered the US imported rice products in Gulf countries and in more than 24 other countries all over the world, which were contaminated with an unauthorised GMO rice variety.

Consumers in the Middle East were likely to be eating GM food, not tested for long-term health impacts, without knowing it, the daily reported.

Quoting Ganem Abdullah Mohammad, director of Wildlife Conservation at the Supreme Council for Environment and Natural Reserves (SCENR), the Gulf Times said Qatar was not planning to ban the import of GM foods, but was more prone to introduce compulsory labelling. India may be another major supplier of GMO contaminated food.

"India, an important supplier of food products for Qatar has been conducting numerous field trials with GMO rice and six other food crops that have been exported to the Middle East in the recent past. Field trials carry the inherent risk of contaminating commercial crops. It is to be remembered that Qatar imported thousands of tonnes of rice from India last year," said the Peninsula.

SCENR officials were not immediately available to comment on the issue.