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 UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official sees risks from gene foods

 Reuters Company News - April 13, 2000 05:32

 By David Brough

ROME, April 13 (Reuters) - A senior official of the U.N.'s world food
body has acknowledged "potential risks" from genetically modified organisms 
(GMOs) to human health and the environment and advised risk assessment on a 
case by case basis.

"We do acknowledge that there are potential risks, either for the human
health or for the environment," Hartwig de Haen,
an Assistant Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation,
told Reuters.

"We therefore advocate risk assessment, case by case," he said.

He said there were concerns over the possible spread of allergies via
the transfer of genes from one plant to another.

"But whether or not that will be the case depends on which gene you
take from which plant and transfer to which other plant or crop 
commodity," he added.

De Haen, who heads the economic and social department and is a third
ranking official of the FAO, said the organisation had no empirical 
evidence on health risks from foods developed from biotechnology.

Environmental groups strongly oppose testing of genetically modified
crops, fearing natural cross-pollination will spread
the new genes into conventional cultivation.

Critics of the biotech crops say there is not enough research to
conclude the crops are safe for the environment and for
human consumption.

In an interview with Reuters in February, FAO Director-General Jacques
Diouf said the U.N.'s world food body believed genetically modified crops 
could provide an opportunity to alleviate world hunger, but food safety must be ensured.

He said existing knowhow excluding gene technology was sufficient to
generate enough food to meet the needs of developing countries today, in theory.

WORRIES OVER SEEDS

De Haen said FAO would be "seriously concerned" if so-called "terminator" seeds 
returned to the market because they were at odds with an age-old tradition in 
which farmers hold back some of their grain from harvest to plant the following
year.

Last October, U.S. biotechnology group Monsanto Co decided not to develop 
the "terminator" technology, which would prevent plants from producing fertile 
seeds, forcing farmers to buy more seed from the supplier.

"Terminator genes have been introduced to give the provider of the
seeds the possibility to control the use of those seeds," De Haen said.

"The use of such seeds prevents farmers from following the old practice
of re-using their own seeds, and it has the risk that farmers who are not 
fully informed about the infertility of those seeds, and yet use them again 
(the following year), might suffer complete failure of their crop."