미승인 GMO 종자 유통에 따른 법제도 개선방안

Abstract

As it became known, in March 2023, that GMO zucchini, which had never even been approved for import, have been cultivated in Korea for eight years, demands for GMO safety management are growing from Civil Society Organizations, including farmers and consumers, who are concerned about seed contamination due to the import of GMOs. This incident has several implications beyond simply raising public concerns. First, despite not being a Competent National Authority, the Korea Seed & Variety Service and the National Institute of Environmental Research were able to make the discovery by continuously monitoring the entire country over a long period of time. Second, concerns that the existing GMO law alone does not provide sufficient safety management have been proven to be true. Third, despite this, the government quickly prepared countermeasures, disposed of them through a complete enumeration, and proposed future counterplans, and the National Assembly also tried to find a solution by proposing a bill to amend the GMO Act. However, measures taken by the government and the National Assembly do not solve the fundamental problem. In other words, in a situation where food imports are the premise, even if the system is strengthened, there are still limitations in that the import of GMOs itself cannot be prevented and the unintentional growth or cultivation of GMOs cannot be fundamentally prevented. Nevertheless, in the current situation, efforts are needed to prevent recurrence as much as possible by establishing institutional measures. In this paper, we attempted to present a plan to strengthen the inspection of target items, the import approval method, and quarantine procedures as pre safety management. In addition, as follow-up management, our aim was to suggest ways to not only strengthen monitoring but also prepare measures to liability for or support for damage. Although it is impossible to ban imports themselves at a time when the food self-sufficiency rate is only around 20%, efforts must be made, in the least, to prevent the spread of damage caused by contamination to our agriculture as much as possible through safety management.