Agence France Presse
MONTPELLIER, France, Dec 15 (AFP) - A UN conference on biosafety ended here Friday with a preliminary agreement to set up a data centre to pool knowledge and information about genetically modified organisms.
The centre, which will have a free Internet site, will be a collection point for national data about regulations, administrative measures and science about engineered organisms, and will list which organisms are accepted or barred according to each country.
Agreement to set up a "pilot phase" for the centre was announced after a five-day follow-up meeting among the 130 signatories of the UN's Biosafety Protocol, hammered out in Montreal last January.
This accord, also called the Cartagena Protocol, aims to set down clear rules for trade in genetically engineered raw foods.
The issue has become ensnared in accusations that crop growers face a thicket of confusing laws, and that arguments about potential dangers for the environment and health are being used as trade protectionism.
The Montpellier conference also agreed on providing help for developing countries to craft legislation on transgenic organisms and access the best available scientific knowledge.
Wealthier countries will be sollicited to send experts -- scientists, agronomists, lawyers, corporate employees or workers from non-governmental organisations -- to advise poorer countries on their approach.
These specialists will be required to work neutrally, making their skills available through the protocol's secretariat.
At least 50 countries are required to ratify the Biosafety Protocol for it to take effect. Only two -- Bulgaria and Trinidad and Tobago -- have done so.
Genetically modified organisms are crops that have had genes added to them to improve yields or their resistance to pests.
The most popular crops are corn, cotton, potatoes, soybeans and tomatoes. But these are only the first generation of altered foods, expected later to include farm animals and fish.
Genetically modified food ingredients are widely on sale in North America but are banned or shunned in other countries, especially in western Europe, where a series of food hygiene scandals has sensitised opinion to arguments from environmentalists that the new crops carry unknown dangers.
The Biosafety Protocol covers raw foods, not those that have been processed.:
