We are no lab rats for GM crops

It’s another kharif season. This is also the time biotech seed companies push and prod the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), the nodal agency for any environmental release of controversial Genetically Modified (GM) crops, to open up the country for their reckless experiments of GM crops.

The GEAC has bowed to pressure from the biotech seed industry and approved 25 applications for field trials in a single meeting. These include GM versions of staple crops, rice and wheat, along with maize, cotton and castor.

Contamination impact

One might wonder what is wrong with experimenting with novel technologies. One should take a closer look at this technology and the concerns around it. Research on transgenic crop development has been taking place for three decades.

But what has also happened over this time is growing scientific evidence of their potential impact to human health, the environment and farm livelihoods.

A recent compilation of peer reviewed papers on the above themes published by the coalition for GM-Free India showed more than 400 of such studies. This is also why many countries are treading cautiously on GM crops.

Even after all these years, the total GM cultivated area is just 3.4 per cent of the total global cultivated area. But still the promoters of GM crops either feign ignorance, or impudently say that GM crops can cause no harm.

Given the proven cases of impact of GM crops, the next thing one should look for is what is wrong with experimental trials. Here again, evidence shows that open field trials lead to contamination of regular food and seed supply.

Classic cases are that of contamination from field trials of GM rice and GM wheat, both of which are mostly self-pollinated crops, in the US. Bayer Liberty link GM rice wreaked havoc among US rice cultivators when grains of this GM rice, which was unapproved, started appearing in the supply chains.

No one could explain how this happened. Ultimately after five years of a legal battle, a jury ordered Bayer to pay $136.8 million to Riceland, one of the big farmer cooperatives which lost customers due to this contamination.

A similar contamination scandal rocked the US last month when Monsanto’s herbicide tolerant genetically modified RR wheat was found contaminating wheat supplies from Oregon in the US.

While Monsanto and USDA are still trying to explain the possible reason for such contamination from field trials that happened almost eight years ago, American wheat supply has been badly hit, with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and EU stopping wheat imports. Yet again, farmers were at the receiving end.

Our own Bt cotton case has proved that contamination with transgenes is unavoidable if we let them into the open.

We need to remember that these are novel organisms that have not been proven safe; contamination is irreversible. Besides health concerns, there is also the huge impact on biodiversity that this could have.

It’s this reality that led the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) comprising experts from the fields of toxicology, biodiversity, molecular biology etc, set up by the Supreme Court, to say that no genetic modification of crops for which India is a centre of origin should be allowed.

Looking at the abysmal levels of regulation of field trials in the country and the irreversible nature of contamination, the committee also recommended a precautionary principle-based approach towards GM crops.

The expert committee is expected to give its final report before the next hearing of the case in the Supreme Court in the first week of July.

Two myths

The GEAC seems to be in a hurry to approve these field trials before the report of the TEC is made available and the Supreme Court takes a considered view.

One wonders why. Going by past experience one can only say it’s only for benefiting GM crop developers.

But spin doctors in the media seem to be at work. They have started congratulating the Environment Ministry, under which comes the GEAC, on overriding concerns raised by various segments of society and the State governments to give these approvals.

There is also the familiar refrain, “if GM crops are not permitted how can we provide food security to a growing population”.

This promotes two myths — that GM crops yield more and more output can solve problems of hunger.

A 10-year review by the Central Institute for Cotton Research notes, “Cotton Advisory Board data show cotton yield increased by about 60 per cent in three years between 2002 and 2004 when the area under Bt cotton was a meagre 5.6 per cent and non-Bt area was 94.4 per cent. ”

So where is the big yield that spokespersons of GM seeds talk about?

Malnutrition and hunger in our country are a failure of distribution and lack of purchasing power, and not one of production.

The Indian Government is sitting on one of the world’s biggest hoards of food grains, about 66.7 million tonnes as of January 1, 2013, making the current stock 2.5 times more than the Government’s benchmark for buffer stocks.

The distressing fact is that 21 million tonnes of wheat go bad every year due to lack of storage and distribution facilities.

How is it that the promoters of GM crops continue to insist on more production in the name of food security, when we are sitting on a mountain of foodgrain and wasting it?

GM crops are risky and the country cannot be made a laboratory and all of us ‘lab rats’. GM field trials should stop.

(The author is Senior Campaigner, Greenpeace)

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