Adapting safety procedures to specific national needs

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities. Agenda 21 recommends making existing safety procedures widely available by collecting existing information and adapting it to the specific needs of different countries and regions.

Different nations have set different standards for how much genetically engineered material they will permit without requiring a label on food. The European Union put the limit last year at 1 percent, one of the world's strictest. Japan, whose labeling requirement takes effect next month, decreed a 5 percent tolerance for products such as soybean tofu and corn flour. No tolerance is set for organic food in the United States.