Star supermarket network promotes public awareness on GMO

PanARMENIAN.Net - The director of the commercial department of the Star supermarket network, Narine Avetisyan, considers necessary to conduct social actions aimed to raise public awareness on presence or absence of genetically modified organisms, GMO, in products.

Consumers are unaware of GMO branded products, which recently appeared in Armenian market in large quantities, according to her. They started to address Star supermarket network officers for clarification, who, in their turn, give them brief information regarding GMO.

“No special statistics is carried out presently on import of goods containing or not containing GMO because of the lack of respective law,” Avetisyan told PanARMENIAN.Net In this context she emphasized necessity of its adoption that will help apply mechanisms of tracing information on GMO presence in food products.

The RA bill on Use of GMO has already been developed and submitted for the Government’s consideration.

As the head of Agency on bio-resources to the Armenian Ministry of Wildlife Protection, Artashes Ziroyan, said, the bill will soon be sent to the Parliament and will be ratified by the end of the year.

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is an international agreement on biosafety, as a supplement to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The Biosafety Protocol seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology.

The Biosafety Protocol makes clear that products from new technologies must be based on the precautionary principle and allow developing nations to balance public health against economic benefits. It will for example let countries ban imports of a living modified organism if they feel there is not enough scientific evidence that the product is safe and requires exporters to label shipments containing genetically altered commodities such as corn or cotton.

The required number of 50 instruments of ratification/accession/approval/acceptance by countries was reached in May 2003. In accordance with the provisions of its Article 37, the Protocol entered into force on 11 September 2003.