Officials prepare to face bio-safety issues
It has not yet become a major issue in Belize due to the relatively small scale of our agriculture. But scientific developments in the area of food technology could one day present tough choices to Belizean officials. For now they are getting ready to face the future.
Dr. Michael Deshield, Director, Food Safety, BAHA
?A lot of people do not know exactly what it is and so a lot of what we have to do is an education process. We want to go into schools and just spread it out. So from what we understand that a lot of people do not know much about it but those who know are, really have some concerns about its safety.?
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
And what the Director of Food Safety Dr. Michael Deshield is talking about is G.M.O.?s or Genetically Modified Organisms, a process in which researchers take a single gene from a plant or animal cell and insert it in another plant or animal cell to give it a desired characteristic such as a plant resistant to a specific pest or disease.
Dr. Michael Deshiled
?They have isolated a gene from a frog, from a toad that produces a toxin that kills bacteria. They took that gene from that toad and put it in a potato so it expresses the toxin that kills the bacteria so you do not have potato rot. Now of course the obvious concern is what does that toxin do to us??
Belize has not yet approved the use of any G.M.O. for production in the country however a national bio-safety framework is being developed to ensure an adequate level of protection in the use and handling.
Dr. Michael Deshiled
?We have to be cautious because it is something that is being done in a lot of the developed worlds, especially. And there are products that are on the market that are G.M. It is not here yet as far as we are concerned. We have not imported any genetically modified organisms for planting or anything. Of course G.M. material may come in here in the food that we import from the states, because that is widespread over there. If you have any corn in there most of it is probably G.M. corn or soy beans. But we have not imported anything to be planted or released in the environment here and we want to make sure that if that actually occur?and they are requests for certain things to come in but we say no until we have a framework in place.?
A nationwide consultation is underway to sensitize the public about this modern bio-technology, its risks and benefits.
Dr. Michael Deshiled
?We have in the policy that that the country should benefit, not necessarily the individual. That is something that is quite new and so we want to make sure that we can derive the benefit from bio-technology. But make sure that any risks that we have identified–any risk assessment that it is not detrimental to the country, to human health or the environment.?
The meetings are being conducted by the National Bio-Safety Committee. The N.B.C. was specifically created to as part of the country?s international agreement in which Belize committed itself to develop a policy, legislation and administrative system to handle notifications and request for imports or the authorized use of G.M.O.?s or products of new technology.
Dr. Michael Deshiled
?It?s not just matter of saying no. You can say no to drugs, but something like bio-technology you have to show to the international community why you are saying that or else you will be challenged internationally and you can get sanctions and all of these things that we do not want. The benefit of it is that you have to weigh the risk and the benefit, so the idea of what we are going about is to get the public concerned. Now if the public is up in arms about this and all of that then we can say that the public just doesn?t want this here and this is why we are saying no and that is acceptable.?
The consultations continue tomorrow morning in Belmopan. The meeting starts at eight at the George Price Centre. On Friday they move to Punta Gorda.
