WITHOUT GMO

So far foreign scientists have not reached a consensus regarding the negative impact of genetically modified organisms (GMO) on human health. And this is down to the major agro-industrial corporations that fund information campaigns and the time it takes to carry out a study of the impact of GMO on humans. Three generations need to be studied and each generation means 25 years. However, the warnings of scientists made on the basis of research carried out on animals have still taken effect. To this point Austria, Greece, Venezuela, Poland, Belgium, Germany and even New Zealand have declared themselves zones free from products with genetically modified organisms.

What is the situation with produce containing GMO in Azerbaijan? The Institute of Genetic Resources (IGR) of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences is embarking on wide-scale monitoring to detect the amount of GMO in produce. According to IGR director Zeynal Akbarov, these measures will be carried out in the course of three years on the basis of "Regulations for determining the possible danger arising from GMO within the country", which was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. As well as the National Academy of Sciences, this work will be carried out by four other state structures - the ministries of agriculture, health, ecology and natural resources and also the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents.

The results of the research will then be presented to the Cabinet of Ministers. When the permission of the cabinet has been received, the Phytosanitary Service, with the participation of the relevant ministries, will destroy produce containing GMO.

Akbarov said that the import into the country of seeds containing GMO and the cultivation of agricultural produce containing transgenic components is forbidden by law: "In Azerbaijan, as everywhere else in the world, there are genetically modified grasses, cotton, vegetables, fruits and forage plants. It needs to be ascertained where precisely such plants are being set. The producers of genetically modified produce (GMP) are being fined a hefty sum."

It should be noted that this monitoring will only be carried out on cultivated areas. But Azerbaijani markets are a completely different kettle of fish. The fact is that state structures, experts and the medical profession came to the conclusion a long time ago that food products, animal feed and agricultural crops with transgenic elements are still coming into the country and we are consuming products that contain them. However, no-one could corroborate these suspicions because there was no special laboratory where research could be carried out.    

Today the situation in this sphere is radically changing: at the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents a laboratory has begun operating to detect GMO in food products. According to the head of the department's press service, Fazil Talibli, the laboratory was set up at the experimental testing centre of the AzTEST committee.

"The state committee has purchased state-of-the-art equipment," he said, "and has arranged for its specialists to undergo practical training in European countries specializing in advanced experience in this field. An analysis of food products from shops in Baku which have been designated 'without GMO' is in fact being carried out in the laboratory. If genetic engineering is still detected in a product the committee demands that the seller or supplier withdraws this brand."

So far the activities of the laboratory have been confined to research into a specific group of products because the draft law "On genetically modified organisms" has still not been endorsed by the Milli Maclis, and consequently, there is no corresponding legal base for widening the monitoring of all types of food products, food additives and agricultural crops. As a result the checks are confined to just demands and regulations.

"In the future, when the law on GMO comes into force, we intend to tighten the checks in this sphere and take the appropriate administrative measures. However, even now we are able to claim that statements about the existence of a large amount of GMP on the country's consumer market are without foundation," Talibli noted.

Amendments to the law "On the list of goods in civilian circulation that are subject to special permission for use", which were adopted by the Milli Maclis, are currently operating in Azerbaijan. According to these amendments, the amount of GMO in Azerbaijan is included in the list of types of activity that demand compulsory licensing. Where there is an unauthorised amount of GMO fines are imposed: AZN 200-300 for individuals; AZN 500-600 for officials and AZN 1500-2000 for juridical persons. Besides this, the law "On the protection of genetic resources and the rational use of cultivated plants", which was signed by President Ilham Aliyev in December 2011, also operates in the country.

The cultivation and consumption of genetically modified products is linked with a number of risks, from both the ecological and medical point of view. Firstly, there is a real danger that genetically altered forms can accidentally find their way into the wild which could lead to disastrous changes in Azerbaijan's ecosystem. Secondly, the consumption of a transgenic product causes an allergic reaction to foreign protein in many people. Furthermore, varieties of plants that are resistant to pesticides (genetically modified soy beans and maize) can collect harmful substances and cause poisoning when consumed in food.

There is already convincing proof of the destabilization of the genome of a plant when embedding it with a foreign gene. For example, for the production of the food additive tryptophan in the USA at the end of the 1980s a GMN-bacteria was created. However, together with ordinary tryptophan, for some not fully explained reason, it began to develop ethylene-bis-tryptophan. Some 5,000 people fell ill after consuming it, 37 of whom died and 1,500 became disabled. Independent experts claim that genetically modified crops give out a thousand times more toxins than ordinary organisms.