Turkish GMO crop legislation spurs controversy

The past week saw much criticism on a recently adopted regulation related to the control of food and feed products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Turkey, according to local daily Sundays Zaman.

The daily said that various nongovernmental organizations demand the complete prohibition of these products on the grounds that they pose risks to public health, endanger Turkeys biological diversity and have the potential to make Turkey a dependent country.

The new regulation went into effect on Oct. 26 after it was published in the Official Gazette and drew widespread opposition from agricultural organizations, consumer associations and political opposition parties.

They claimed that the regulation places the nations health at risk by making the import of GMO crops in Turkey free.

GMOs can be produced by gene cloning methods in which a non- native gene is introduced and expressed in a new organism. Until today, genetically modified soybean and corn have been entering Turkey due to a void of legislation.

According to figures from the Turkish Union of Engineers and Architects Chambers (TMMOB), Turkey imported 1.8 million tons of corn and 900,000 tons of soybeans in 2003, while the amount of soybean imported in 2005 rose to 1.2 million tons.

Turkey does not yet have a bio-security law, setting rules and regulations for GMOs; hence, the government says it wants to take these crops under supervision until a comprehensive law comes into effect.

Turkish Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker, the figure at the center of the criticism, dismissed allegations that the new regulation would open the way before the entry of GMOs to Turkey, explaining that the GMO trade will be supervised and that they will not escape supervision, as they had in the past, with this regulation.

He also described the ongoing debates about the issues as aimed at misinforming the public.