Farmers' group warns against importing rice from the US

MANILA, Philippines - A militant farmers' group on Tuesday warned the National Food Authority (NFA) against importing rice particularly from the United States as these may be genetically modified. In a telephone interview with GMANews.TV, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas spokesman Carl Ala said importing rice from the US increases the danger of exposing local consumers to genetically modified rice. “Kailangang maging maingat sa pag-iimport lalo na galing sa US. Mas malaki ang danger na mapasukan tayo ng genetically modified rice dahil walang mechanism para ma-detect ito (We need to exercise caution in importing rice from the US. There is now a bigger danger that genetically modified rice could get through, especially since we do not have a mechanism to detect this)," Ala said. Ala noted that upon the request of environmental group Greenpeace, a Quezon City court last year issued a temporary restraining order against the entry of rice variety Liberty Link 62 (LL-62). LL62 - produced by Bayer Crop Science Inc. - is genetically modified to resist a powerful weed killer. Greenpeace had questioned the apparent lack of public voice and public consultation on GMO approvals by the Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Plant Industries. In the interview, Ala said the NFA should closely scrutinize rice imports from the US, saying genetically modified rice can easily be mixed with normal rice. He said what makes the matter worse is that the Philippines has no law regarding GMOs. “Pag pinalitan ng sako paano mo pa malalaman? Nalusutan na tayo last year (If they place it in a different sack, how can we still detect? Genetically modified rice have already passed through the checks last year)," Ala said referring to the rice imported by Bayer. “Tina-try na mapasok sa Pilipinas e bawal yan sa ibang bansa. Dito sa atin gustong i-test (They have been trying to get it into the Philippines because it has been banned in other countries. They want to test it here)," he added. On the other hand, the NFA said it only import rice that have been cleared to be GMO-free, noting that the government has ways to determine if the rice is genetically modified. In a telephone interview, Rebecca Olarte, NFA assistant public affairs manager, assured that quality checks are being conducted at the source country. "Sinisigurado na na-clear yung bigas bago i-import... May representative from the Bureau of Plant Industry na nagche-check ng quality ng bigas bago i-load. Pina-certify yan sa isang certification agency (We ensure that the rice are cleared before they are imported here... We have a representative from the Bureau of Plant Industry who checks the rice quality before they are even loaded for importation. We have them certified by a US certification agency)," Olarte said. Olarte, however, admitted that the NFA has yet to obtain the document which certifies the 10,000 sacks of rice that arrived at the NFA warehouse on Monday. She said they are ascertaining whether the new batch arrival is part of the importation batch of some 44,000 sacks of rice that arrived in Subic last week which was cleared by a US certification agency to be GMO-free. In the interview, Olarte further clarified that it was not the government that imported the rice which was found to be contaminated with genetically modified organism last year. "Private company ang nag-import n'un. Lahat ng stocks na yun sinunog then na-dispose (It was a private company that tried to import it here. Upon discovery, all its stocks were burned and later disposed)," she said. - GMANews.TV