Mario Chinchilla, from the Association for the Promotion and Development of the Community (CEIBA), organization which together with the Univertisty implemented the analysis laboratory, stated that GMOs are genetic engineering projects, which allow to include parts from microorganisms, plants and animals into other beings, and thus the biological barriers with prevent this transfer from occurring are broken.

He also said that there is a strong controversy in terms of the consumption of GM products, because a 600 per cent increase in deaths of animals fed with GMOs has been reported in the experiments.

Since 2000, civil society organizations from Central America have stated their interest in researching the presence of GMOs in grains and processed food, in addition to its use as seeds in crops.

This is the first laboratory to carry out this kind of analysis. Before, the only way to obtain results was to send the samples to the US, with high costs. The service provided by the lab will be aimed at development organizations, cooperatives, networks, confederations, and producers groups which work for the protection of biodiversity, research, health, socio-economic aspects and cultural identity.

According to Amilcar Sanchez, the person in charge of the laboratory, currently only 9 types of GMOs can be analysed in grains and cornmeal, but soy and rice will be able to be analysed in the near future.