Staff Reporter
HH the Heir Apparent Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has issued a decree setting up a committee on Biosafety Protocol. The committee, headed by the secretary-general of the Supreme Council for Environment and Natural Reserves (SCENR), will formulate rules and regulations on the import and use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GM food in the country.
Ghanem Abdullah Mohamed, director of Wildlife Conservation Department at SCENR, said yesterday that the new committee would be assisted by a scientific panel.
The Biosafety Protocol committee will have members from Standards and Metrology Department, Ministries of Commerce and Agriculture, National Health Authority (NHA), Ports and Customs Authority and Central Municipal Council. The committee will have the Convention of Biological Diversity as its focal point.
The scientific committee would consist of GMO scholars, representing Qatar University, Qatar Foundation and the NHA, Ghanem said.
The Biosafety Committee has been mandated to put in place the laws to “protect the country and its people from goods and products from the possible harmful effects which GMOs might cause”.
The official explained that the country was not seeking a total ban on the import or use of GM foods because it had not been established that they were harmful to human beings. Nor had it been proved scientifically that they were safe for human consumption.
So, it should be left to the consumer to decide whether he/she wanted to buy such foods. “The customer should have an informed choice”.
All GM products should be labelled as such, the official argued.
Currently, there are several products in the country’s supermarkets which are genetically modified. They are mostly corn, soya, wheat and rice byproducts. They come from the developed countries. They are not labelled to indicate that they had been genetically manipulated, Ghanem said.
The official pointed out that Qatar had ratified the Cartagena Protocol, an international convention on the regulation of biotechnology, in June this year.
So far, 143 countries had ratified the Cartagena Protocol, which seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology. It establishes an advance informed agreement (AIA) procedure for ensuring that countries are provided with the information necessary to make informed decisions before agreeing to the import of such organisms into their territory.
The Protocol contains reference to a precautionary approach and reaffirms the precaution language in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.
The Biosafety Committee would not only formulate the required rules but would also monitor all the products entering the country, Ghanem said.
Qatar is the third country in the Gulf to have ratified the Protocol. Oman joined the treaty in 2003 and Saudi Arabia last month.
The official did not say when the rules could be expected. |
