The five-day meeting of the Codex taskfore for foods derived from moderm biotechnology, which ended on September 23, centered more on trade and nutritional aspects of GM foods, almost ignoring the ethical and environmental aspects. India and Norway were in the forefront in demanding a discussion on these aspects when the issue of transgenic animals and fish came up. Norway is a major fish exporting country and had rightly raised the issue.

Codex is an inter-governmental body and has the responsibility in setting acceptable standards for food, which are often referred to as the base. But countries can adopt more stringent national standards, provided they are based on sound scientific reasoning. Global trade is generally affected not due to the standards set by Codex but due to the stringent sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) norms of the developed countries. Developing countries find it difficult to comply with norms of the developed world. In a way the easier Codex standards do not prove to be of much help in resolving disputes relating to SPS norms on food.

Trade in GMOs and GM food is a contentious issue. The dispute between two major trading blocs - European Union and US - on this is still pending before WTO. Codex was expected to intervene to resolve the issue, but does not seem to moving in this direction. Codex Alimentarius Commission is an inter-governmental body jointly launched by UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Health Organisation (WHO). Therefore, both FAO and WHO also have the responsibility of resloving this contentious issue. Public concerns about health and environmental safety of GM food and related ethical issues need to be effectively addressed on priority to resolve trade-related issues. But unfortunately Codex has begun ignoring these. A draft on transgenic animals prepared by Australia and other countries deliberately ignored the ethical aspects. When it came up for discussions there was a demand from many member countries to address these. The representatives from FAO and WHO then admitted, "Ethics are indeed important." But they preferred to deffer discussions till the next meeting of the taskforce scheduled on November 27 to December 1, 2006. It was also proposed that FAO would conduct a workshop on ethical issues relating to GMOs and GM food a day before the taskforce meets.

The WHO representative suggested that instead of dwelling on these issues, the Codex, in the next four years, should deal with the nutritional aspects GM foods. Why should the discussion on only nutritional aspect of GM food be taken up by Codex? Why does not Codex suggest promotion of the traditional foods with high nutrition content?

Codex cannot take the pretext by saying that its other sub-committees are discussing related issues like labelling of GM foods. It is the foremost duty of the Codex taskforce on foods derived from biotechnology to address the issues of public concern.

The guidelines on genetically modified plant prepared by Codex in 2003 also does not address ethical and environmental concerns. The discussion was taken up on a draft prepared by Canada on nutritional aspects of genetically modified plants. There, the issue of traces of unapproved GMOs in food came up. The incident of Starlink Corn slipping into the food chain five years ago and recent cases of BT 10 corn causing major problems also figured.

The meeting of 263 delegates from 53 countries could not resolve the issue. Food aid is also an importnat issue. In the recent past there had been cases where US was determined to dump GM corn as food aid to some African countries, much against their will. Controversies relating to GM food not only relates to science, but also to health, environmental and ethical concerns. Codex should address these issues.