More about GM food and its use

The most common GM food according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) in 2008 are GM soybean, GM maize, GM cotton and lastly GM canola. Theses for ingredients are the crops that take up to 99% of the global hectarage of GM crops. Also in 2008 25 countries have been reported by the ISAAA to have been commercially cultivating GM crops. Other countries though not involved in the cultivation of such crops, do have regulatory approvals for GM crops to be imported to their county for food and feed use. Altogether since 1996 to 2008 around 670 countries have been granted the approval to either cultivate GM crops or have them imported.

With the cultivation of GM crops, cost spent on growing these crops should reduce due to the lesser use of herbicides and pesticides and also lesser lost of crops. However due to regulations and consumer’s rights, labelling is in fact mandatory in most countries which increases the cost of the GM food or ingredient. Then cost is not only needed to paste a little sticker on the product but mainly to maintain the credibility of the labelling system. Therefore due to this the cost of GM food or ingredients may in fact be more expensive than non-GM foods or ingredients.

Lina