DA approves list of 17 GMO products that may be imported

The Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), an agency attached to the Department of Agriculture (DA), approved recently 17 transformation events (TEs) of genetically modified (GM) crops for commercial use as food, feed or processing materials in the Philippines.

A report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service’s Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) shows that BPI approved last Feb. 4 the 17 TEs including corn, soybean, canola, potato and cotton.

The approval allows importers to bring into the country these commodities for as long as they contain amounts as stipulated in the approved TEs, the USDA said.

Prior to this, the approval was limited to corn and soybeans shipped from the US to the Philippines.

Dr. Randy A. Hautea, global coordinator of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), said the Philippines has been actually importing GM crops from the US for several months now.

The USDA said one TE was also approved for commercial planting in the Philippines. This involves the commercial production of Bt corn by American firm Pioneer Hi-Bred Philippines Inc.

Monsanto Philippines was the first company to produce Bt corn in December 2002.

Bt corn, is a GM crop that utilizes its bacillus thuringiensis bacteria to resist the Asiatic corn borer pest.

Monsanto, also has a pending application for the commercial production of a second GM food crop in the country - the herbicide-tolerant corn.

The Philippines was the first Asian country to endorse the commercial production of Bt corn. The government allowed 10,000 Filipino farmers to plant Bt corn in over 20,000 hectares last year.

Hautea said the total area devoted for Bt corn production in the Philippines would expand from 20,000 hectares in 2003 to 50,000 hectares in 2004.

Critics, however, claimed that the government allowed the commercial use and production of GM crops in the Philippines without signing the Biosafety Protocol, as an instrument of protecting biological diversity from the potential risks associated with the propagation of GMOs.

The Biosafety Protocol is an agreement adopted during an international convention in Cartagena, Colombia on Jan. 29, 2000, as a global effort to institute a precautionary regime that regulates international trade of GMOs.