China Corn crop outlook, Thailand to mend its ways - change the way poultry is kept, Biotech Labeling - Why biotech labeling can confuse consumers

China Corn crop outlook

 

Reports from China suggest that the corn crop in China will be better than last year (2003). The corn crop is expected to be 120 – 122 MMT, higher by around 5%. It is expected that China’s domestic consumption will be 119 – 120 MMT same as last year. It is more likely that China will not be in the market to sell corn this year as China’s export volumes have come down drastically in recent months.

 

Thailand to mend its ways – change the way poultry is kept

 (With inputs from Reuters news).

  

As more bird flu cases emerge in South East Asia, Thailand plans a campaign to change the poultry farming methods.  According to Deputy Prime Minister Chaturon Chaisang. “Priorities are to protect humans from the disease and minimize chances of the chickens being infected”.

 

The planned changes will be wrenching in a country where more than 60 percent of the people live on the land and the vast majority keep chickens, ducks and other fowl.

 

Chickens in Thailand, as in most Asian villages, often wander freely, even in and out of houses, and defecate wherever they want, spreading any disease they might have.

 

Huge flocks of ducks move over wide areas in a largely nomadic existence in search of food. That will have to be curtailed, Chaturon said.

 

"Given that people have died of bird flu, we can no longer allow free range poultry farming to continue at the current large scale," he said. The ducks would have to be kept on farms.

 

The campaign, due to start next week, would include incentives and punishments to persuade people to raise poultry in hygenic conditions and reduce the risk of disease.

 

"We will sponsor farmers to raise their chickens away from their homes, give them nets, cages and so on," Chaturon said.

 

International health agencies have been urging Asian nations to abandon traditional farming methods and overhaul hygiene at old-style farms since the H5N1 virus arrived.

But Hans Wagner, a senior animal production official of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation in Bangkok, told Reuters on Wednesday it would take time to implement change.

 

"If you look at how the farms are constructed, the houses of the owner and workers are close to the pens, there are people and motorbikes coming and going, the cages go to market and they come back without being disinfected," he said.

 

Chaturon said the Thai government shared the FAO's concern and it hoped to persuade people to change their farming methods with incentives.

 

Don’t think India will be spared. Virus cannot be stopped at borders, banning imports is not the answer. System will need to be set up so as the Indian farmer is safe, but at the same time does not suffer. Steps will need to be taken to make the farmers aware on the need of bio-security to safe-guard themselves as well as others. Proper disposal of dead birds, curtailing movement of people and vehicles inside / outside the farms, could be few steps that the farms can take.  

 

Biotech Labeling – Why biotech labeling can confuse consumers

(Adapted from http://www.whybiotech.com)

 

Consumers want food product labels with clear, meaningful information.

 

A grocery shopper, for example, finds a wealth of factual information on labels, whether it’s about nutrient and caloric content or specific health aspects of a food product.

 

Should that same shopper also be able to read on the label whether those corn chips or that bottle of cooking oil contains biotech ingredients? Some say yes. Given the concerns raised by a few about biotech safety, there’s an important “right to know,” they contend. 

 

Others say there’s no need to label foods with biotech ingredients that are the same as foods with ingredients from conventional crops. Requiring a label for biotech ingredients, they say, would confuse consumers, not inform them.

 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees food safety issues in the United States, takes the second view. The agency performs exhaustive safety tests on every biotech food entering the marketplace, and requires special labeling only when the new food product is significantly different from its conventional counterpart. 

 

Tested for safety

 

Before they reach a farmer’s field, biotech corn, soybeans and other genetically enhanced foods undergo years of review by researchers, university scientists, farmers and other government agencies in addition to the FDA. 

 

The results are unambiguous. Biotech crops are safe to eat. No studies or test results have said otherwise. There hasn’t been a single documented case of an illness caused by biotech foods. A report issued in 2000 by the National Academy of Sciences, an independent group of scientists and scholars, confirmed that all approved biotech products are as safe as their conventional counterparts.

 

So safety is not at issue in labeling biotech food. Instead, the FDA considers whether a biotech orange, for example, is “substantially equivalent” to a traditional orange. Does it produce the same nutrients? If it does, there’s no need for a label. If it doesn’t — if the orange has a higher or lower level of vitamin C — then the FDA requires a label.

 

Under this line of thinking, labeling all biotech foods would make a distinction without a difference. Rather than communicating relevant health or safety information, it would merely explain the process by which the food was developed. And in so doing it could sow confusion among consumers. Ninety-two percent of food industry leaders, for example, believe that mandatory biotech food labeling — which proponents often position simply as an informational tool — will instead be perceived as a “warning” by at least some consumers.³

 

The American Medical Association (AMA) has stated “there is no scientific justification for special labeling of genetically modified foods, as a class.”

 

Statistics show that the current FDA policy — labeling biotech foods when there’s a meaningful reason to do so — is what consumers want. When surveyed for their opinions, two-thirds to three-quarters consistently approve of the existing system once it’s explained that biotech foods have been reviewed and found safe by experts, and would be specially labeled if the nutritional content has been significantly changed.

   

When asked in an open-ended way what information they’d like more of on product labels, only 1 percent of consumers mentioned biotechnology. Three percent said ingredients; four percent nutrition and 75 percent said they wanted no additional information.

 

Costly and confusing

 

Countries and trading blocs that want to require labels have had to develop a long list of exemptions and loopholes. That’s the case in Europe, which enacted labeling requirements and other restrictions. An article in the Wall Street Journal pointed out that the European system has “confused consumers” and “spawned a bewildering array of marketing claims, counterclaims and outright contradictions that only a food scientist possibly could unravel.”

 

Labeling requirements also increase costs. Keeping biotech commodity crops separate from traditional ones requires new expenses in the agricultural supply chain — in added handling measures, testing requirements, and so on — that inevitably will be passed on to consumers.

 

A Canadian study estimated that mandatory labeling would cost that country’s consumers $700 million to $950 million annually — arguably, a food tax on the majority to pay for the labeling demands of a few.

 

Focusing debate

 

Biotechnology is a fast-changing science that’s raising environmental, economic and ethical issues. Given the importance of food in a fast-growing world where about 840 million people go hungry, those issues deserve to be considered on their merits.

 

By raising questionable concerns in the minds of consumers, and introducing unnecessary costs, mandatory labeling requirements may only distract from what’s truly important: a rational, fact-informed debate about the risks of biotechnology, balanced against the benefits it offers.

 Dated Oct 02, 2004

Amit Sachdev
Consultant, U S Grains Council - India
FF 303 G, Sushant Shopping Arcade, Sushant Lok 1, Gurgaon - 122 002 (Haryana), India
Tel: +124-2396539 * Fax: +124-2396209 * Mb: +98110-61516 * E Mail: bluecros@vsnl.com