No Cash for GM labels, Warn Trading Standards

Trading Standards Officers will not be able to properly enforce new GM food labelling laws unless they receive more funding, according to Steve Butterworth, food specialist for the Institute of Trading Standards Association (ITSA), the officers' professional body. Unless new money is found to monitor food for genetically modified (GM) ingredients, attempts to reassure the public over GM food will fail, he says.

Friends of the Earth is calling on the Government to take urgent action and impose a levy on GM food producers to pay for the monitoring. Opinion polls have shown clearly that most people in the UK want to avoid GM food, but lack of segregation between GM and non-GM crops and ingredients has made this difficult.