The EU has set up a network of labs that will measure any genetically engineered content in the foods we eat. A scientist from Cork heads the body charged with overseeing this work, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
Many consumers are unhappy about genetically modified foods but have found it difficult to keep them off the menu given poor monitoring and a lack of controls. The EU is attempting to turn this around by creating a network of laboratories that will introduce comprehensive testing of the foods in our shopping baskets.
Last month the Commissioner for Research, Philippe Busquin, announced details of the European Network of GMO Laboratories (ENGL). It includes 45 testing labs including two in the Republic that will search for GMO (genetically modified organism) content in foods. With him at the podium in Brussels was an Irishman, Dr Barry McSweeney, director general of the Joint Research Centre. The Commission asked the JRC to take control of the new network and to standardise GMO testing.
The idea is that test results, for example on a tin of beans, remain the same whether it is tested in Dublin, Barcelona or Athens, explains MsSweeney.
"This is one of the few areas where there is an absolute need for harmonised methods," he says. "We don't do routine testing for people. We harmonise laboratories across Europe. The new regulations on GMO food and feed specify that the JRC becomes the community reference laboratory."
The object of the 45-lab network is to improve traceability in the food chain. New regulations agreed by the Agriculture and Environment Councils specify limits on GMOs in food and feed and require labels warning of GM content if levels are too high. The limits mean nothing, however, unless agreed testing methods are put in place to ensure compliance.
The Council agreed that if for example a biscuit contains no more than 0.9 per cent GM maize flour then it doesn't need to be labelled as genetically modified. Anything above this will require labelling as a way to give the consumer a choice. The Council also agreed a maximum threshold of 0.5 per cent for food containing traces of accidental GMO content.
It isn't just a matter of chopping up and testing a few biscuits however. Sampling strategies and techniques are needed to allow confidence of low GMO content in say a 16,000 tonne bulk shipment of maize flour.
"The enforcement of these regulations must be applied in each member state," says McSweeney. The two designated enforcement labs here are the State Laboratory at Abbotstown and the National Crop Variety Testing Centre within the Department of Agriculture and Food.
The JRC is the largest of the directorates general within the Commission, with 2,300 staff, most of them scientists. It is therefore impressive that an Irish scientist heads the Centre.
McSweeney hails from Cork and is a clinical biochemist. He did his undergraduate degree at University College Cork then an MSc and PhD at Trinity College Dublin. He was director of BioResearch Ireland, the State body responsible for promoting and supporting biotech research here and moved from there in 1995 to the Commission.
He became the director of the Institute of Health and Consumer Protection within the JRC based at Ispra, Italy, and then the head of the JRC itself in 2001. He recognises people's sensitivity to the GM question, but also believes the current moratorium on GMO field trials will be lifted by the middle of next year pending agreement by the European parliament, given the agreement at the recent agriculture and environment councils.
"The question of GMs is a trade issue and a consumer affairs issue," he says. "I think the public will take time to be reassured" about safety. One of the key problems is that people don't see any benefit for them, only for the companies and for the distributors.
Consumers won't accept GM products "unless they see benefits. Either they are going to be seen to be of benefit or else why buy them," he says.