Experts meeting to address identification requirements of living modified organisms intended for food or feed or processing have been unable to finalize agreement on the issue.

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Open-ended technical expert group on identification requirements of living modified organisms intended for food or feed or for processing (LMO-FFPs) met from 16-18 March 2005, in Montreal, Canada. The meeting aimed to facilitate a decision by the Parties to the Biosafety Protocol regarding the detailed requirements of identification measures, which according to the Protocol’s text must be adopted no later than two years after its entry into force. The issue of documentation accompanying transboundary movements of LMO-FFPs was the final stumbling block of the Biosafety Protocol negotiation. After electing François Pythoud (Switzerland) as Chair of the meeting, participants discussed issues related to: information to be provided in the accompanying documentation, including information on the LMOs, a statement to be incorporated in the documentation, and contact information; the extent and modality of using unique identifiers; thresholds for adventitious or unintentional presence, including thresholds for approved and for unapproved LMOs; and available LMO sampling and detection techniques, with a view to harmonization. Following the group’s mandate, participants sought to draft a decision for the consideration of the second meeting of the Parties, to be held from 30 May – 3 June 2005, in Montreal. A Chair’s text was drafted, and then revised, to facilitate discussion. However, due to a lack of consensus, participants decided to forward the revised Chair’s text as it stood, recognizing that there are different views which remain difficult to resolve, and that the text does not represent consensus. The report of the meeting.