Addition of sugarcane to the list of genetically modified foods
Washington: In a notice that was published on July 24 in the Federal Register, the Agricultural Marketing Service of the US Department of Agriculture has requested public input on its proposal to include sugarcane on its List of Bioengineered (BE) Foods. The inclusion would be significant since, in recent years, several food producers have avoided using beetroot sugar and instead have increased their usage of cane sugar in their goods to avoid the controversy surrounding the use of bioengineered crops and food items generated from them.
Congress mandated that the USDA publish regulations in December 2018 to carry out the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, which mandates that food importers and manufacturers notify consumers through designated channels of any foods or food ingredients they use that are or may be bioengineered.
The restrictions went into effect in February 2019 and require compliance by January 1, 2022.
The AMS created a list of bioengineered foods that regulated organisations are required to keep records of in accordance with the applicable regulations. Documents will let regulated businesses know if they have to disclose bioengineered food or not.
In the Federal Register notice, the AMS stated, “Unless they have records demonstrating that the food or ingredient they are using is not bioengineered, regulated entities must make a bioengineered food disclosure if they are using a food or ingredient produced from an item on the list.” Similarly, if a regulated business has real knowledge of a food or component that is bioengineered, even if it is not on the list, they are required to disclose it
The food they are utilising is bioengineered, or it contains a bioengineered element.
The majority of sugarbeets grown in the US and Canada are bioengineered types, and the crop is included prominently on the AMS List of Bioengineered Foods.
The United States certified the first sugarbeets resistant to BE herbicides in 1998. In 2006 and 2007, trial and seed production of the cultivars were conducted in small quantities. Since 2008, producer adoption rates have been extraordinary. In 2008, BE cultivars accounted for about 60% of harvested sugarbeet acreage; by 2009, adoption rates had increased to 95%. The USDA reports that by 2013, BE cultivars accounted for 99.9% of harvested sugarbeet acreage.
BE sugarbeets faced legal challenges from groups like the Organic Seed Alliance, the Centre for Food Safety, and the Sierra Club on their path to deregulation and commercial production. However, all pertinent federal agencies resolved or overruled the challenges, and BE herbicide-tolerant sugarbeets were formally fully deregulated July of 2012.
Conversely, no BE sugarcane is currently farmed for commercial purposes in the United States. However, the AMS List of Bioengineered Foods does not use that as a criterion for inclusion. According to the AMS, a food must meet two requirements in order to be listed on the list: first, it must be approved for commercial production of BE food globally, and second, it must be currently being produced legally and commercially for human consumption worldwide.
On developments in Brazil, the AMS is presenting a case for sugarcane to be added to the BE Food List.
As per the Federal Register notice, the AMS stated that it “believes that Brazil approved bioengineered sugarcane for commercial release and that bioengineered sugarcane is currently in legal commercial production.” “Recombinant DNA technology was used to develop sugarcane that is resistant to insects, helping to manage infestations of sugarcane borer. For the 2018–19 crop year, Brazil approved the commercial production of bioengineered sugarcane in 2018 and planted about 4,000 hectares of the crop. According to AMS, sugarcane need to be included on the list as a consequence.
Since that’s the only bioengineered feature utilised in sugarcane’s production, the AMS indicated that when it added sugarcane to the list, it would specifically include insect-resistant varieties
date.
Lucerne, apple (Artic cultivars), canola, corn, cotton, papaya (ringspot virus-resistant types), pineapple (pink flesh varieties), potato, salmon (AquAdvantage), soybean, summer squash and sugarbeet are among the foods on the AMS List of Bioengineered Foods.
Several crops and foods, including alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, sugarbeets, and soybeans, are extensively farmed in the United States. Some food items, including pineapple and eggplant, are included in the list because they are produced commercially in other nations; examples of these include Bangladesh’s BE eggplant and Costa Rica’s BE pink flesh pineapple.