August 13, 2009
The Food Matters report published in July 2008 by the Cabinet Office included two parallel action points for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Defra on genetically modified (GM) food and animal feed.
The action points were as follows:
- Defra, working with the FSA, will publish an analysis of the potential impacts on the livestock sector arising from global food trends in GM production and the current operation of the GM approval system in the EU.
- In parallel, the FSA, working with Defra,will publish an analysis of the extent to which changes in the market are putting a strain on the regulatory system for GM products (including animal feed) and the implications for UK consumers.
The report on the work that the FSA and Defra have undertaken in response to these points can be found at the link below. The analytical reports, which support the work taken forward by Defra, are available on the Defra website via the link below.
A progress report updating all of the Food Matters actions, including the two action points above, was published on 10 August. The progress report, which is called ‘Food Matters: One year on’, can be found at the link below.
What is Food Matters?
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| UK consumers more relaxed than ever about GM food |
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Source:
GMO Compass The results of interviews with 2,100 adults were published in the newest tracker survey in the UK to address consumer attitudes towards food safety, food concerns and other major Food Standards Agency (FSA) issues. Conducted quarterly, the research also monitors consumer awareness of, and trust in, the FSA. In keeping with a general trend, a fall of three per cent in expression of overall concern about food safety issues was observed in the latest result of 61%. Within this sector, food poisoning occupied 47%, followed by concern about the quantities of fat, salt, sugar and saturated fat present in food (41%, 40%, 36% and 36% respectively). Concern about the conditions in which animals are kept and food prices were both recorded at 33%. Four per cent of interviewees cited GM foods spontaneously when requested to identify food issues of concern. This represents a reduction of two percentage points with respect to the previous quarter. Interviewees also were presented with a list of seventeen issues related to food. The issues included food prices and the use of pesticides and antibiotics in the production of foodstuffs, as well as the degree of fat, sugar and salt in food. In a significant drop of five percentage points in comparison to the last survey, concern about GM was mentioned by only 21% of respondents, the lowest of any issues suggested. See also on GMO-Compass: An overview of European consumer polls on attitudes to GMOs |