The regulatory system for GM foods in the US, where the largest amount of genetically altered food is produced, is either "inadequate, non-transparent or completely absent", a report on the global GM industry has claimed. The report, by the Worldwatch Institute, also highlights the extent to which consumer concern about GM food is beginning to grow in the US.
"Portrait of an Industry in Trouble" was published yesterday in Washington DC, where its chief author, Mr Brian Halweil, said widespread commercialisation of transgenic crops had come "before - not after - any thorough examination of the benefits and risks associated with such crops.
"The regulatory framework [in the US] devoted to transgenics is inadequate, non-transparent or completely absent. There has been essentially no public discussion about the many potential consequences of large-scale planting of transgenic crops," the report says. The institute is a leading US environmental body which evaluates global trends.
The absence of adequate evaluation, it adds, is reflected in the call "only recently" from the US Secretary of Agriculture, Mr Dan Glickman, for studies assessing the long-term ecological effects of GM crops when "almost half of the US soya bean crop, and nearly as much corn crop, are already genetically engineered".
It also cites another indication of "lack of precaution" reflected in a study published by Nature scientific journal in December which suggested the insecticide produced by a widely-planted variety of transgenic corn could accumulate - in its active form - in soil for extended periods.
The potential effects of this, its authors noted, had not been considered prior to planting tens of millions of hectares of GM corn. The study raised concerns about the adequacy of existing safeguards, Mr Halweil said.
An indication of the GM food industry's increasing problems in the US was to be found in growing projections for 2000. After four years of "stupendous growth", farmers were expected to reduce GM seed plantings by 25 per cent this year.
The amount of transgenic crops globally has jumped more than 20-fold in the past four seasons, from two million hectares planted in 1996 to nearly 40 million hectares in 1999. The US, Argentina and Canada accounted for 99 per cent of the global transgenic acreage, "pointing to the limited global acceptance", the report adds.
