El Salvador is a net food importer. White corn, red kidney beans, and rice are the major staples. The United States is the main supplier of yellow corn for animal feed, rice, wheat, vegetable oil, tallow, soybean meal and cotton, among other products.
Required Report - public distributionCurrently there are no restrictions on imports of agricultural biotech products. The only law that regulated trade of biotech products was the Planting Seed Law that became effective in September 2001. Title IV of this law – Final and Transitory Dispositions, Chapter I, Article 30 stated that it was prohibited to import, conduct research on, produce or commercialize Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) seeds. Due to pressure from the private sector and to the rising food costs, on April 30th, 2008, the Government of El Salvador (GOES) decided to abolish Article 30 (Please see Chapter 1, Part B: Plant Biotechnology Policy).
The other law that addresses biotechnology is the Environment Law, effective since May 1998. Article 21 Paragraph “Ñ” of this law provides regulations for carrying out environmental impact studies to determine if GMOs are harmful to the environment and Article 68 provides guidance on procedures to
create bio-safety norms. El Salvador also ratified the Cartagena Protocol and it has been in effect since December 25, 2003.
