Du
01 April 2004
au
30 April 2005

Système d’analyses en routine de détection des OGM

System of analyses in routine for GMO detection

Context

The EU launched a specific legislation concerning the genetically modified organisms in order to regulate marketing and labelling of foodstuffs and feedingstuffs.

The experimental disseminations and marketing of GMO’s are among others regulated by the directive 2001/18/CE which involves the obligation :
- to inform public,
- to guarantee labelling and traceability at all the stages of the marketing,
- to provide informations allowing to identify and detect GMOs to facilitate later inspections and controls.

This directive was implemented by regulations 1829/2003, 1830/2003 and 641/2004 which establish a harmonized system for GMO traceability and introduce the obligatory labelling of genetically modified feed. The rules relating to the labelling of the genetically modified foodstuffs are reinforced.

Objectives

Detection of GMOs or their derivatives is a type of analysis becoming increasingly current in the requests carried out by producers of the agro-food world. It requires a very good know-how especially when it is necessary to quantify the transgenic events in presence.

Thanks to the support of the Walloon region, the aim of this project is to develop a laboratory of GMO detection analyses and provide a high level service for the various producers and for authorities within the framework of their missions of control.
The laboratory is competent for analyses on food, feed and seeds (quantification of presence of transgenic seeds in the conventional seeds) but also for the monitoring in the framework of coexistence between the transgenic, conventional and organic cultures.

This project will also aim to obtain accreditation for the analyses of GMO detection.

A last objective will consist to adapt the execution of the analyses to possible technical progress. It is indeed probable that modifications are necessary due to the fast development of techniques (Real Time PCR, microarrays,...) and arrival of new GMOs on the market.

Results obtained

Thanks to the support of the Walloon region, the CRA-W has now the technical and human ressources to propose a service of analysis in routine for detection and quantitation of GMOs.
Results obtained by the laboratory in various proficiency tests show a perfect control of techniques in this field.

The number of analyses carried out per year is gradually increasing as shown in table 1.

Table 1 : Number of analyses performed per yearYearNumber of analyses2000140 samples2001140 samples2002260 samples2003400 samples2004500 samples

The introduction of a system of quality assurance (accreditation) is in phase of finalization.

Funding

  • DGARNE

Team