Objectives
The Task Force aims to produce recommendations for safety evaluation of food crops developed for non-food use (FCNFU), and practical application of these scientific recommendations for the purpose of managing co-existence situations (food crops for food use vs. (modified) food crops for non-food use) in the supply chain to ensure consumer protection and food safety. This might include an inventory of FCNFU, including processing of waste streams for feed (and perhaps food ingredients). The latter may result from the need to make FCNFU economically viable.
Background
Crops that traditionally have been used for food and feed production are increasingly employed to produce other valuable substances like biofuels, bioplastics and pharmaceuticals. These FCNFU may be modified by modern conventional breeding or genetic modification techniques to improve their performance for these purposes. The entire crop may be used or only parts that are not used for human consumption.
Optimisation of food crops for non-food use may introduce features that make the crop unfit for human consumption. For instance, specific rapeseed (Brassica napus) optimised for biofuel production could contain high concentrations of toxic erucic acid. Crops grown for the production of industrial chemicals, vaccines or pharmaceuticals would contain the respective chemical, vaccine or drug. In addition, FCNFU may still pose a risk because the crop will probably not be monitored for natural and man-made contaminants like mycotoxins and pesticide residues that are relevant for food crops.
Mixing of food and feed crops by FCNFU may occur during many steps, e.g. planting, cross fertilisation during growing, transport, storage and due to mislabelling. In addition to the crop itself, intermediate and end products from the crop may be blended. The high likelihood of unintended mixing is illustrated by the frequent detection of GMO materials in non-GMO crops. For those FCNFU that are not genetically modified, detection limits will be much higher than for GMO crops.
Presently, in contrast to approved GMO crops, no threshold is set for (trace) levels of FCNFU in food crops in the EU Food Law. As a zero tolerance approach appears impossible to maintain, there is a need for evaluating the safety in this area. Since FCNFU production is increasing rapidly, this is an urgent issue.
Plan of Action
An Expert Group will be established to collect and review the available data on this topic and to prepare a paper that describes the (framework for) safety evaluation of the mixing of food (and feed) crops by FCNFU. A workshop will be organised with experts in the field and stakeholders like farmers, food and biotech industry, government and consumers to discuss the paper. It is the intention to publish the reviewed paper.
Once established, the task force members will determine the detailed action plan, and may want to include traceability and ‘dual use’ of crops for food and non-food purposes.
Possible Partners and Institutions to be Involved
- Farmer organisations
- Consumer organisations
- International public health organisations.
Impact
The project is expected to improve public health policy making by providing adequate science-based safety evaluation procedures for the management of mixing of food crops by FCNFU.