FAO GM FOODS PLATFORM GLOBAL COMMUNITY MEETING “TOWARDS EFFECTIVE RISK-BASED GM FOOD SAFETY ASSESSMENT AND REGULATORY MANAGEMENT”

Dates:10-13, September 2019

Place:Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Bangkok, Thailand.

1.      To establish contacts and build networks that can enable effective information sharing of technical information.

2.      To increase awareness of the benefits of platform use to increase volume of submission and promote its use as a resource.

3.      To enhance the ability of countries to conduct, interpret and analyze GM foods safety assessment in accordance with the Codex Guidelines.

Currently there is a lack of international consensus among stakeholders in the global community on how to approach conducting Genetically Modified (GM) food safety assessment as adopted by the Codex Guidelines. In addition the global community also lacks consensus on the technical interpretation of the Guidelines.

This meeting therefore can attempt to assist developing countries to better understand GM food safety assessment and enhance there capabilities and capacities in regard to the following:

1.      Assessment, analysis and interpretation of country’s GM food information.

2.      Assistance to authorities with decision making of GM food.

3.      Present the FAO – GM food Platform as a resource portal to help bridge the knowledge and experience GAP among countries.

4.      The sharing of lesson learn among advance and developing countries with the GM food assessment and the information will be retired to being strictly technical where no policy formulation, decision making or resolution will be had.

Participants overview:

• 103 persons from 74 different countries participated at this meeting.
• Regional distributions of the participants were: CCAFRICA = 31%; CCASIA = 30%; CCNEA = 9%; CCEURO = 11%; CCLAC = 12%; CCNASWP = 7%;
• 76% of the participants were the Platform community members (Focal Points or Alternate Focal Points)
• Very equal gender balance (49% male and 51% female)

·         Day 1 – Ms Kundhavi Kadiresan, Assistant Director General, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific welcomed the participants and emphasize the importance of international collaboration in this scientific development.

·         Mr.  Andrés Murchison, the Secretary of Food and Bio-economy of the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries of the Argentine Republic delivered the keynote address, he highlighted the value of international data-sharing on GM food safety assessment.

• Representatives of Canada, Kenya and Argentina discussed their country experiences in using the data on the FAO GM Foods Platform. They stressed the usefulness of data available on the platform with regard to low level presence (LLP) GM foods.  Also emphasized it the possibility for capacity building and development when using the FAO GM Platform.

Day 2 – Dr.  Hiroshi Yoshikura of Japan and former  Chairperson of the Codex Inter-governmental Task Force on food derived from Biotechnology, explained the basis of the Annex 3 of the Codex Guidelines which triggered the development of  the FAO GM Foods Platform. He stated that in his opinion “we don’t have a trade problem now because the Platform’s  existence.”

• Ms. Emily Silk, Deputy Director, Technical Trade Policy Division, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Canada introduced the case study in Canada on LLP situations.

• The USA, Malaysia and the Philippines discussed they work at the national-level and shared data on GM food safety assessment as is uploaded on the FAO GM Foods Platform. The differences between the USA, Philippines and Malaysia’s (data) information as posted on the Platform, was illustrated.

• Professor  Orachos Napasintuwong, Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Faculty of Economics, Kasetsart University, Thailand, presented the current situation on GMOs in Thailand, from her vantage point as an economist and taken into consideration the rapid advancement of new plant breeding techniques. Professor Napaintuwong,  in her presentation suggested that the time has come for regulatory changes in Thailand regarding  GM Foods.
• Day – 3 Representatives from Kenya, Uganda and Zambia introduced their joint proposal to develop a collaborative structure to conduct GM food safety assessment.
• Jennifer Holtzman, Novel Foods Section, BMH, Health Canada, Canada introduced their experiences on successful joint work with FSANZ (Australia) on GM food safety assessment.
• Group worked followed by table. The exercise was to discussed the FAO’s GM Food Platform usefulness and the Africa and Cannada / Australia co-operation models, Group responses were presented on day 3.

• Tashi Yangzom, Senior Food Safety Officer, Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Bhutan discussed Bhutan’s experience on partnering with experienced countries such as Argentina and Australia.
• Day -4 Through various working group sessions and a World Café session, participants agreed that collaboration is key and the Platform community can be a great starting point.
• As conclusions, 8 take-home messages below have been elaborated by the FAO Secretariat.

Seven take-home messages:

1. Well-populated Platform is extremely valuable, to address Annex 3 LLP (Low Level Presence)  Issues, Risk Assessment referral, resource for capacity development.

2.      Community = opportunity for trust development, data sharing,  starting point to build trust, active interaction for community members.

3.      Advocacy is a challenge, but we should not give up because of scientific advancement, efforts are statble and continuous, informed policy makers are also consumers.

4.      Trade issue vs. safety issue, with effective assessment LLp will be only a trade issue and not safety,  platform reduce trade issues,  sharing of assessment information would remove trade issues.

5.      Platform is the best place to initiate collaboration; contact info is already online and is accessible for all Focal Points.  Face to face meeting as the one hosted by FAO is the best way to learn from the experiences of others. Community can effectively grow thereafter with regular interaction. .

1. Overcoming language barriers can be overcome with additional languages to the platform.

7.      Facilitating effective partnerships is a welcome and an activity supported by the FAO.

Follow-up actions

• FAO Secretariat will finalize the meeting report in October 2019.
• During the World Café session, participants team up and planned more than 30 concrete follow-up actions.
• All the actions will be detailed in the final meeting report, but meanwhile, some concrete ones included as followings:
  • Plan a joint (2-3 countries) workshop to conduct training-of-trainers training on GM food safety assessment
  • Develop a memorandum of understanding (among 3 countries) to concretize the plan of collaborative actions
  • Share communication materials on biosafety to be used by partner countries
  • Share effective documents of some practical check-lists and SOPs so that other country partners can refer to the successful ones to develop their own documents
  • Assess common needs among partner countries and develop a concept note to be submitted to FAO for consideration to conduct a capacity development activity
• Some national-level or group-level activities will be further considered by FAO to address urgent needs from some of the participating countries.

1.      Sensitization to the general public on the existence, purpose and objective of the GM Platform administered by the FAO.

2.      Hot local or regional training of GM LLP Assessment by resourceful Platform members countries such as Argentina, Canada or the USA.

3.      Establish regulatory guidelines / legislation for GM food in Guyana.

4.      Establish intra-regional collaboration among Caribbean Countries to conduct joint activities.