GMO Biosafety Research 2015, Vol.6, No.2, 1-6
5
wheat; loss of pasture areas for thousands of sheep
and cows forcing over pasturing in remaining areas. In
addition to these problems, the GMOs are a new
challenge. The problem is the uncontrolled
importation of GMO products. Now, GM crops and
products are imported, cultivated, and marketed freely
(Ayten Mustafayeva, et al., 2013). The main problem
of the transgenic products is the uncontrolled
distribution and use, which is also true for Azerbaijan
intensive development of agriculture industry, market
policy, integration into the world trading system, the
economic benefits allow a wide range of topical
application of GMOs in Azerbaijan. Thus, the
potential impact of GM crops on Azerbaijan’s
biodiversity may be on levels of agricultural
biodiversity, natural ecosystems and landscape scales
et al., 2003). In their quest for higher earnings,
farmers of Azerbaijan cultivate high-yielding,
disease-and pest-resistant GM crops. Now, we can
only findone species of corn, one species of
watermelon, a very small number of species tomatoes
and cucumber in our markets. Most vegetable seeds
are imported from foreign countries whose origin is
unknown.
When addressing this problem, one has to consider
our country's current status (lack of the laboratory
equipment for GMOs-detection, great opportunities of
our country in agrarian sector, constant food security,
absence of the threat of hunger, population size, etc.).
Since the start of the development of food legislation
in other countries in the positive direction, the
scientists and society activists achieved a total prohibit
of the GMO containing food products in countries like
Switzerland, Austria, Poland, and Turkmenistan.
There is a lack of scientific research on the effects of
the use of the GMOs and therefore our scientists
should pay attention to this problem. There is a
number of arguments against the uncontrolled and free
import of the GMOs and GMO containing products to
our country. These reasons are: 1) lack of information
about the GMO products; 2) lack of test facilities for
detecting GMOs; 3) lack of laws regulating import of
products containing GMOs.
Conclusion
The Rich natural ecosystems, flora and fauna and the
nine climatic zones in Azerbaijan require regulation
by a very specific legislation on production and
distribution of the GM crops and GMO containing
products. The reason also is that Azerbaijan is a
signatory to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety since
2005. It has to comply with its obligations and set in
place a legal and administrative system to prevents or
reduces the risks of GMOs to biological diversity,
taking also into account risks to human health.
It is
necessary to develop laws that regulate products
containing GMOs. Without such legislation, the
uncontrolled use of GMOs will create problems for
our country and our people in the future
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