Non-GMO certificate

Subject: Science and Technology

Context:

The US says India’s non-GMO certificate requirement hurt its apple, rice exports.

Concept:

Legal Position of GM crops in India:

In India, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) is the apex body that allows for commercial release of GM crops.
Use of the unapproved GM variant can attract a jail term of 5 years and fine of Rs. 1 lakh under the Environment Protection Act, 1986.
The task of regulating GMO levels in imported consumables was initially with the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).
Its role was diluted with the enactment of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and FSSAI was asked to take over approvals of imported goods.
In August 2020, FSSAI had issued the order that 24 food crops the country imports would need a ‘non-GM-origin-cum-GM-free certificate’ issued by a Competent National Authority of the exporting country.
- The items include pineapples, apples, wheat, rice, tomato, potato, maize, melon, plum, papaya, potato, egg plant, bean, among others.
- The requirement of a non-GM certificate is on consignment basis.
- The authority defined the GMO threshold of 1% on these crops for certification.
- Laboratories in India can detect as little as 0.01 per cent presence of GMO in foods, the letter pointed out. So, the country must aim to accept imported consignments only when there is no trace of GMO in the products, especially processed food, and they come with a GMO-free certificate.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)-

They are living organisms whose genetic material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering in order to favour the expression of desired physiological traits or the generation of desired biological products
This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.
Most GMOs have been engineered to withstand the direct application of herbicide and/or to produce an insecticide.
However, new technologies are now being used to artificially develop other traits in plants, such as a resistance to browning in apples, and to create new organisms using synthetic biology.

Genetically Modified( GM ) Crops

They are that type of plants whose DNA has been modified through genetic engineering for embedding a new trait to the plant which does not occur naturally in the species.
Genetic engineering aims to transcend the genus barrier by introducing an alien gene in the seeds to get the desired effects and the alien gene could be from a plant, an animal or even a soil bacterium.
Across the world, GM variants of maize, canola and soybean etc , are available.

GM crops in India:

Bt cotton, the only GM crop that is allowed in India since 2002, has two alien genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that allows the crop to develop a protein toxic to the common pest pink bollworm and the other is HtBt cotton which is derived with the insertion of an additional gene, from another soil bacterium, which allows the plant to resist the common herbicide glyphosate.
In Bt brinjal, a gene permits the plant to resist attacks of fruit and shoot borers.
Previously, the government has put on hold the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard due to stiff opposition from anti-GM activists and NGOs.