Bui Cach Tuyen, head of the Environment Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, told a national conference in Hanoi that Vietnam had no specific regulations to control the import of GM food.
Thus it cannot determine whether raw or processed food contains genetically modified organisms or not, Tuyen said.
“That means many Vietnamese people are eating GM food without realizing it.”
The jury is still out on whether GMOs are harmful to humans and the environment, and other countries hold different opinions about their use and management.
In Vietnam, genetic modification has been done successfully on corn, pennywort, gerbera and other plants.
Under a plan already approved by the government, Vietnam will start cultivating genetically modified corn, cotton, soybeans and other crops for commercial purposes from 2011 to 2015.
By 2020, according to the plan, 30-50 percent of these crops will be genetically modified varieties.
At present, GM crops are grown on 127 million hectares in 47 countries.