Paper short abstract:

Labeling of GM food is a challenging and hotly debated issue in agricultural biotechnology governance. The Bolivian experience provides important insights on this issue when faced with multiple constraints in the context of responsible agricultural biotechnology governance.

Paper long abstract:

Labeling of GM food is a hotly debated and controversial issue in agricultural biotechnology governance. Despite normative and technical challenges, the number of countries labeling GM foods is growing, particularly in the Global South. The Bolivian experience provides interesting insights into these challenges. Bolivian law mandates that all products intended for direct or indirect human consumption that contain or are derived from GMOs must be labeled as such. Labeling GM foods in Bolivia represents a major challenge for a number of reasons: 1] limited technical and human resources capacity, 2] the majority of the population's reduced purchasing power, 3] restricted relevance in the international trade as Bolivia represents a minor market, 4] clear divisions between public and private actors on questions about the safety of GMOs. Bolivian regulators held deliberations to explore how they might interpret their legal obligations as they developed a regulatory approach, while sensitive to the technical capacities and socio-economic context. This paper analyses the institutional and technical issues emerging from these deliberations including multi-sectorial coordination, a scope focused on citizen's rights to information over unfinished discussions on safety, a process-based approach for GMOs identification and traceability, and on-border labeling of imported products. Although this regulatory approach has yet to be implemented, the Bolivian experience provides important insights for other Global South countries considering GM food labeling regulation when faced with multiple constraints in the context of responsible agricultural biotechnology governance.