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German food distributor cancels order
Contamination from GMO papaya feared
KULTIDA SAMABUDDHI
Bangkok Post, 3 September 2004

A well-known German food distributor has banned fruit cocktail products from a Thai exporter for fear the products contain genetically-modified papaya.

The German importer has stopped ordering canned fruit cocktail from a Chiang Mai-based processed fruits exporter following a report of the spread of GM papaya from the Agriculture Department's Khon Kaen research station to local farms, said Soontorn Sritawee, vice-president of River Kwai International Food Industry, a key member of the Thai Organic Alliance Society.

The Thai exporter and German importer were not named.

``It is a shocking move for exporters. We did not expect that the ban would be imposed this fast,'' said Mr Soontorn.

Mr Soontorn said he was informed by the company on Wednesday that its fruit cocktail shipment, which contains papaya, pineapple and guava, would be banned indefinitely.

The importer demanded the company prove the papayas were grown from GM-free seeds.

He said the company has switched to buying papayas from the southern provinces pending an investigation of the GM papaya scandal in Khon Kaen.

Food exporters have confronted a series of trade obstacles since GMO contamination in local farms was publicised, said Mr Soontorn, including a GM-free labelling requirement in South Africa on Thai rice and an order to delay shipments of Thai papaya products by Carrefour superstore in France.

Meanwhile, the Thai Organic Alliance Society, a group of organic food exporters that opposes genetically-engineered food technology, pressed the government and the Commerce Ministry to clarify the Thai GMO policy for importers.

``Please urgently inform them that no commercial plantation of GM crops was allowed here,'' the group said in a press release.

The exporters also demanded the government establish a neutral committee to investigate the GM papaya scandal in Khon Kaen, saying that the department's sluggishness in looking into the case had generated mistrust among importers.

Agriculture Department director-general Chakan Saengraksawong said all means would be used to regain the trust of importers. He said technical officers would be dispatched to explain to the European Commission that Thai farm products were free of GMOs.

The department will also invite European importers to inspect the department's GM papaya field trials to prove that the experiment was conducted under strict biosafety control measures, he added.

Papaya has been exported mainly as fruit cocktail, dehydrated papaya, and canned papaya in syrup. Thailand exports about 1,000 shipping containers, worth about one billion baht, of fruit cocktail each year.