FACTBOX - Japan's new rules for biotech crop imports
Date: 29-Mar-01
Country: JAPAN
Under the new rules, Japan will also seek mandatory labelling for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food products.
THRESHOLD FOR LABELLING
- Japan will allow food products containing less than five percent of approved biotech crops like corn and soybeans to be labelled as non-GMOs. Food makers using only non-GM crops or ingredients can voluntarily put "GM-free" label on products.
- Japan would make it mandatory to put labels on food products in which GM material is one of the top three ingredients and where the material accounts for five percent or above of food weight.
- Food companies have to put either of the two types of labels - "using GMOs" or "GMOs not segregated" - unless they segregate GM-free crops or ingredients and use them exclusively in their products.
- Animal feed and food products in which DNA or protein resulting from gene alternation cannot be detected using existing technologies are exempted from labelling.
- Exempted items include vegetable oil, soy sauce, corn flakes, glucose syrup, high fructose corn syrup, alcoholic beverages with corn starch, dextrin, mashed potatoes, potato starch, potato flakes and processed potato products.
MONITORING
- The Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry will release its guidelines, including details of sampling and testing for unapproved gene-altered crops in imports at unloading ports or in food products on the domestic market from April 1.
- There will be little change in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry's monitoring for StarLink on the domestic market in imports of feed corn. The ministry has been conducting its own checks for StarLink.
PANALTY/FINE
- Any goods found at the quarantine stations to contain unapproved GMOs will be destroyed or shipped back to the origin. Violators of the new regulation will incur penalties of up to one year imprisonment or face fines of up to 100,000 yen ($820).
APPROVED GM VARIETIES
- The health ministry has approved 31 varieties of six GM crops (corn, soybeans, rapeseed, potatoes, sugar beet and cotton) for food products and five for food additives.
- The health ministry is expected to approve another four GM varieties for food products and two for food additives in April.
- The approval was for imports and sales under the government's safety guidelines.
- The agriculture ministry currently approves 28 GM varieties for animal feed (13 for rapeseed, eight for corn, two for soybeans, four for cotton and one for sugar beet) and four varieties for feed additives.
STARLINK ISSUE
- StarLink, made by Franco-German pharmaceutical group Aventis SA , is not approved in Japan even for use in animal feed.
- Discoveries of StarLink last October in food products in Japan prompted the single biggest U.S. corn buyer to cut buying sharply, with importers scrambling to find other supply sources.
- StarLink was barred by U.S. regulators for human use because of concerns it might cause allergic reactions. The discovery of the gene-altered corn in taco shells last September triggered the eventual recall of more than 300 U.S. foods.
- Japan imports 12 million tonnes of corn each year for animal feed and another four million tonnes for food. The United States supplied more than 95 percent in 2000.
- Japan also imports about 4.8 million tonnes of soybeans a year for crushing and food, mostly from the United States.