President charged government to set up GMO laboratories

The head of state ordered the government to ensure that a network of experimental laboratories for checking food containing GMOs, as well as the national center for the scientific and methodological coordination of activities of GMO testing laboratoriesis, is created by September 1, 2009.

On May 13, the government approved a draft resolution outlining the mechanism for labeling GMO food, which was drafted by the State Committee of Ukraine for Technical Regulation and Consumer Policy. The document foresaw that food containing over 0.1% of GMOs would be labeled from July 1, 2009.

Experts said that Ukraine should have at least 25 GMO testing labs for the comprehensive and timely control of food.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said last week that the introduction of GMO food labeling had been postponed until January 1, 2010. This was prompted by the fact that Ukraine did not have enough GMO testing labs and that producers would fail to meet all of the necessary requirements on food labeling in time.