NEW DELHI - India’s environment and forests ministry should not clear any genetically modified (GM) food crop without strict provisions for labelling, the NGO Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said Thursday, a day after the biotechnology regulator gave its nod to Bt Brinjal.

Clearance of Bt Brinjal requires the authorities to practice extreme caution. Currently in India there is no labelling regime for genetically modified foods which will give consumers a choice to make a decision whether they want to consume genetically modified food or not. Till the time this is done, regulators should not clear edible GM crops, said Sunita Narain, director, CSE.

Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the biotechnology regulator, Wednesday approved the commercialisation of genetically modified Bt Brinjal in India.

The decision was condemned by environmentalists, various NGOs and farmers’ organisations. The ministry of environment and forests has to decide on the approval now.

CSE meanwhile has held that labelling of GM-food requires a strengthened laboratory and regulatory framework. Currently in India it is not possible to check the GM-content in our food and this analysis, if done, is rarely made public.

Several food scientists have also stressed that testing for GM in food is not easy or cheap.

If this is the case, then it becomes even more important for us to be cautious in clearing an edible crop, which then cannot be tested easily to check if it is GM or not. In all this, it is clear that we will need a greatly enhanced regulatory system, the organisation said.

Green activists have maintained that all research on GM crops in India is funded by companies like Mahyco and Monsanto and then presented to the regulators for clearance.

It is not surprising then that there is an enormous lack of credibility in the scientific integrity of this research. It is important that research done on our food is in the public domain and so is publicly funded, Narain emphasised.