GM food worm its way penetrating Vietnamese market | Look At Vietnam

GM food worm its way penetrating Vietnamese market

May 8, 2012

LookAtVietnam – Vietnamese state management agencies have admitted that
genetically modified products have been present in Vietnam for a long time.
Especially, they have been available everywhere in the market, competing with
normal censored products.

In April 2012, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) informed
that there had been no final experiment result about genetically modified
organism (GMO), and that Vietnam still does not allow growing genetically
modified crops (GMC) in Vietnam.
Most of the Vietnamese polled people said they had never seen any GM products
before. Nevertheless, management agencies have confirmed that GM products have
been present in Vietnam for a long time.
Management agencies powerless
Though Vietnam only allows growing GMC in small scale before making a decision
over whether to grow GMC in a large scale in Vietnam, GMO products have been
available on the market for the last many years.
Professor Nguyen Lan Hung said at a recent conference that ¾ of GMO cotton
varieties have appeared in Vietnam. In Son La province, farmers have been using
GM cotton varieties imported from China and they have been satisfactory about
the new variety which can bring higher yield than domestic variety.
Hung said that the area for growing the GM cotton variety would increase from
1000 hectares to 3000-4000 hectares the next year, because the new variety can
bring higher yield, while the trees are well drought and insect resistant.
GM food has also been present in Vietnam for a long time. According to Dr Nguyen
Lan Dung, Secretary General of the Vietnam Biology Association, said that
Vietnam has been using GMO products, no matter if it wants or not. Every year,
Vietnam imports 2 million tons of soybean cake and 1.6 million tons of maize,
mostly GM maize.
Meanwhile, the scientists, who attended the workshop on GMO in early October
2011, affirmed that most of the cotton trees grown in Vietnam are GMC.
The Testing and Standard Center No. 3, which tested 323 samples of soybean,
tomato, potato, maize and rice taken accidentally from 17 markets and
supermarkets in HCM City, found out that 1/3 of them are GMO products. However,
the testing center now does not carry out GMO experiments any more.
Consumers being cheated
Answering the question “do you know GMO products?, Nguyen Thu Thuy in Go Vap
district in HCM City said she heard about this, but she does not understand the
issue well. Some people say GMO have appeared in HCM City, but no one has seen
any GMO products in city so far.
Thuy also thinks that if the products are GMO, this information must be shown on
the packs of the products, while consumers would decide whether to buy them.
Meanwhile, Kim Minh, chief accountant of a bank branch in HCM City, said she
usually updates information about GMO and she knows that this remains a
controversial issue.
However, Minh said that while the management agencies have not come to a final
conclusion, the availability of GMO products on the market means that
manufacturers do not respect domestic consumers.
A scientist has cited the survey by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development as saying that most of the animal feed samples available on the
market contain GMO factors. To date, three kinds of GM plants have been allowed
to grow in Vietnam. GM maize has been grown together with normal maize in HCM
City, Dong Nai and Binh Duong.
The worrying problem is that foreign companies give varieties to farmers
directly and they promise to take responsibility for the outlet of the products.
Farmers in the central region and central highlands have also been growing
cotton in a spontaneous way, which shows that agencies remain weak in managing
GMO products.

Vietnam still keeps cautious with GMC | Look At Vietnam

Vietnam still keeps cautious with GMC

May 6, 2012

LookAtVietnam – Vietnam cannot close its eyes to the genetically modified
organism (GMO), described as a revolution in the biotechnology.

There are three different groups of countries in the world which keep different
viewpoints about GMO. The first group includes the countries that advocate GMO,
including the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, China, India and Australia.
The second group comprises of the countries which do not support the new
technology, mostly European countries. And the third group still keeps the
wait-and-see attitude.
In Vietnam, according to Dr Le Huy Ham, Head of the Agriculture Genetics
Institute, only since 2007, did the state set up the directional plan to
research and apply GMO. In the last few years, the development of genetically
modified crops (GMC) in a trial basis has been allowed for some kinds of plants,
such as cotton, corn, papaya and some forestry trees.
As for corn GMC alone, Thai Monsanto Company with three varieties MON89034,
NK603 and MON89034 x NK60, Vietnamese Syngenta with BT11 and GA21 got the
license from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for growing in a
trial basis.
In July 2007, the Prime Minister signed the decision on approving the overall
plan to strengthen the bio-safety management capability over GMOs and the goods
originating from GMOs. The project focuses on building the legal framework on
the policies on bio-safety management policies and heightening the awareness of
the community about bio-safety.
Keeping cautious not a useless thing
Vietnamese agriculture experts believe that Vietnam needs to follow a reasonable
roadmap in approaching GMC. In the first step, it needs to collect information
and analyze the two-sided impacts of GMC, in order to reach a consensus in the
society abut the use of GMC.
Secondly, Vietnam needs to allocate higher budget to upgrade the material
facilities and improve the labor force for basic research works to create GMC in
Vietnam.
Thirdly, Vietnam should think of growing in a large scale some kinds of GMCs
including cotton, forestry trees, ornamental trees, strictly following the
biosafety rules.
Dr Nguyen Hong Minh, Director of the Center for High Quality Vegetable Variety
Research and Development, has warned that the expenses for GMC seeds are much
more expensive than normal seeds, while the expenses would be increasingly high,
once farmers depend on supply companies. Meanwhile, farmers would not be able to
resume the old ways of cultivation after they apply GMO, because the biological
environment has changed with quite different conditions.
Minh has pointed out that if the farm produce prices are the same for both GMCs
and normal products, farmers would choose GMCs. “In the first 5-10 years,
farmers would not be busy, while they can have higher yield and have to spend
less time on dealing with insects. However, they would be enjoy the good time
for a short period,” Minh said.
“The risk they would face is very high, once farmers depend on multi-national
variety supply companies which have the power to define the prices,” he added.
International experts have warned that GMC variety supply companies have
registered the varieties to confirm their ownership, which means that they would
have the power to control the organisms in the globe with their cross-fertilize.
Especially, the companies may create the varieties with infertility gene, which
means that they can be used to grow one time.
Ham has also confirmed that the current GMCs can be grown for two or three
crops, and after that, they would provide low yield. While Vietnam still cannot
master the GMO technology, it would be really a high risk if it grows GMCs in a
large scale.
Hai Duong