By Alexia Saoulli
A EUROPEAN Union directive that would mean Cyprus will have to allow the cultivation and importation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) when it joins the EU is causing concern among environmental campaigners, who fear Cyprus is not ready to control the possible consequences of releasing such organisms.
Biologist-Environmentalist Melina Menelaou of the National Federation of Environmental Associations warned this week that importing GM food, animal feed, micro-organisms and seeds would be opening a Pandora’s box in term of health and environmental consequences. Earlier this year, Green Party deputy George Perdikis claimed before the House Environment Committee that the consumption of GM foods had cost lives in Europe. Perdikis opposes any move to legalise the growth of GM foods in Cyprus, saying “public health is more important than EU harmonisation”.
Yesterday, Loucas Psillakis, an administrative officer at the Cyprus Conservation Foundation, advised Cyprus to adopt the EU’s ‘precautionary principle’, which suggests prudence in situations where risks are uncertain.
The principle can be applied to anything from nuclear safety to GMOs, if a country fears damage to human health or the environment.
Psillakis said Greece, Italy and France, for example, had adopted a moratorium saying they would not accept any new GMOs into their countries.
” The EU has a directive on GMOs but it’s up to each country to actually, if they wish, go a step further and strengthen the law and make their legislation more strict, as Greece has done, and as we suggest Cyprus should do.”
Psillakis outlined the possible dangers of GMOs: ” There are several concerns with GMOs, not least because there are many uncertainties in the field of genetics, and in particular concerning the precise effect of the introduced DNA or genetic material.”
He added the danger often lay in cross-contamination of crops or natural habitats from GM cultivations.
” In other words if you’re planting genetically modified soya next to a field of non-genetically modified soya you may end up contaminating your proper soya.”
As a small island, Cyprus could suffer devastating effects from such genetic pollution.
Genetic modification is carried out by splicing DNA from one organism into another in order to introduce an absent characteristic into the second organism.
” In other words, if, hypothetically speaking, we want to increase the protein content in tomatoes we would isolate the genetic material that codes for a high protein content in another organism e.g. means or beef, and splice that into the DNA, genetic code, of the tomato,”Psillakis said.
He named soya beans as an example of GM food commonly modified to be more weather-resistant, herbicide-resistant or even disease-resistant.
He said soya was ” actually present in pretty much everything we eat, even though we may not know it: from our tinned ravioli to cat and dog food” .
But he added that, because of the unpredictability of the science, it was possible to end up creating products with unknown side-effects.
” We’re talking about an area where there’s a lot of uncertainty and are dealing with things that we’re not sure how they work.”
For Cyprus, there was little point in taking the risk he said: ” Genetically modified crops are probably not the way to go anyway, whatever their benefits, since many nations now would not allow us to export such produce to them and many consumers are afraid of foods containing GMOs.”
” Of the European nations, the UK is the only one that is going with GMOs without taking any precautions,”he added.
