The Supreme Court’s guidelines on GM crops
have been overlooked with the government okaying field trials of
genetically modified crop varieties
Fears of genetically-modified crops finding their
way out of field trials and into the average Indian’s diet may seem
far-fetched to some. But for a few, they are valid and their
realisation seems imminent as the Genetic Engineering Approval
Committee (GEAC) has approved new field trials of genetically modified
crops in violation of a ban imposed by the Supreme Court in 2005.
In the GEAC’s 78th meeting on May 22, 2007, field trials of GMmustard,
large scale (pre-commercial) trials of Bt Brinjal and stacked genes of
Bt Okra (bhindi) were approved. In another meeting on August 8, 2007,
the GEAC gave the go-ahead to field trials of truncated synthetic Cry
IAC rice. These were not in the original list of 24 items covering
91field trials approved by the GEAC in the intervening period of May 2
to September 22, 2006. TEHELKA is in possession of the list of recent
GEAC approvals and some of these approvals are of field trials to be
conducted by Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company Ltd (Mahyco). In 1998,
Mahyco and GM major Monsanto India formed Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech
(India) Ltd, a joint venture, after Monsanto picked up a 26 percent
stake in Mahyco.
Fearing the unregulated proliferation of GM crops in the country, Aruna
Rodrigues and other environmentalists filed a public interest petition
in the Supreme Court in May 2005, for a moratorium on the release of GM
crops/organisms into the Indian environment and the need for proper
bio-safety testing before their release, including in-field testing.
The apex court took strong note of the matter and stopped further field
trials. It also put in precautions to be taken in “ongoing” field
trials for 24 items including Bt cotton, Bt cauliflower, Bt brinjal, Bt
rice, Bt castor. In all, 91 field-tests were on. But the recent
approvals do not have the court’s clearance and hence are in violation.
Functioning under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the GEAC is
the regulatory body assigned to monitor the manufacture, use, import,
export and storage of hazardous micro-organism and genetically
engineered organism and cells. It is also responsible for the “approval
of proposals relating to the release of genetically engineered
organisms and products into the environment, including experimental
field trials”.
The SC had put in place unambiguous safeguards: there should be a
distance of at least 200 metres between trial fields and other fields
with the same type of crop; the GEAC was to conduct regular supervision
and the approved institution carrying out trials was to submit
validated event-specific tests to confirm that there had been no
contamination.
When TEHELKA sought the Department of Biotechnology’s (DBT) response to
the unapproved field trials okayed by the GEAC, it said the fears were
misplaced. The DBT, which falls under the Ministry of Science and
Technology, categorically says in its written communiqué, “There
has been no violation of the Supreme Court directive and the
continuation of an ongoing field trial means that the GM crops already
inducted in the list can be permitted for trials for evaluation and
generation of material for specific tests.”
But the matter is pending in court with the government seeking more
time to respond when the court had initially granted it four weeks.
What is more intriguing is the conflict of interest that has been
glossed over by the government. GEAC co-chairman CD Mayee is the sole
Indian representative on the International Service for the Acquisition
of Agribiotech Applications (ISAAA), a non-profit organisation that
delivers the benefits of new agricultural biotechnologies to the poor
in developing countries. Further, the ISAAA is funded by biotech giants
like Bayers Cropscience, Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer Hi-Bred and BBSRC
whose field trial proposals come to the GEAC for approval time and
again.
But the DBT doesn’t see anything amiss here and refutes the charges as
baseless and misleading. “ISAAA India office has no core funding
support from any organisation. With limited funding support, all
programs are designed and executed in collaboration with existing
national and international public sector institutions and
not-for-profit organisations.” On the same lines, the DBT says, “CD
Mayee’s association with ISAAA is insufficient to prove conflict of
interest.” Also, the DBT sees nothing wrong in accommodating biotech
companies on task forces and steering committees that direct policy and
investment. “To pinpoint Mahyco alone may not be appropriate,”
clarifies the DBT. “DBT believes such association with the industry is
important for spearheading public-private partnership for the progress
of the country.”
NGOs AND many regional government agriculture agencies allege that the
GEAC does not act on their complaints when they report illegal field
trials by MNCs and violation of contamination precautions. TEHELKA has
in its possession several letters that seem to have fallen on deaf
ears. West Bengal State Agriculture Commission member TK Bose informed
the GEAC about illegal field trials in Nadia district in November 2007.
He wrote, “The field trials of the Bt okra conducted by Mahyco in a
farmer’s field without informing the monitoring agencies in the state
in 2007 is therefore illegal. Similar illegal trails were conducted by
Mahyco in 2006 and the matter was also brought to your notice but the
report was ignored.”
The DBT is reluctant to supply allergenicity data about the safety of
GM crops that is used as a basis to declare field trials safe. What is
even more surprising is that developers like Monsanto and others do the
biosafety testing themselves. Scientists from India and abroad have
requested the GEAC and the DBT to share this information and help them
analyse data generated by the biotech companies on the basis of which
they have been getting the go-ahead for field trials. In a sign of the
strength of the GM lobby, there are hardly any trial proposals that
have been rejected by the approving committee.
The DBT counters these queries with: “Gene flow is a natural phenomenon
and is an evolutionary process. While developing the GM crops, the
issue of GM flow is addressed at the very start to assess gene flow.”
It adds, “This issue has been hyped in the public and in the Supreme
Court.”
Let alone the allergenicity data, the biotech companies are not willing
to reveal the site of field trials and are asking the government to do
the same. Documents with TEHELKA show that officials of biotech firms
have asked senior DBT officials not to divulge information even if the
applications are filed under the Right to Information Act. It is open
to question how the Supreme Court’s safeguards will be monitored if the
field trial sites are kept under wraps.
Recently, one Divya Raghunandan approached the Central Information
Commission (CIC) under the RTI Act to seek toxicity, allergenicity and
other relevant data on transgenic brinjal, rice, mustard and okra. The
DBT simply refused to furnish them. The CIC was unflinching. “It is
clear the genetically engineered organism or cells are recognised by
the government as an item potentially hazardous to public health. In
light of this, we cannot agree that inspection of this information can
be provided in the restricted environment to members of the civil
society.” On April 13, 2007, the Commission directed the DBT to make
the information available. The second time round, the DBT did not deny
access to the information but said it could not be provided as the data
ran into thousands of pages. Then, they came up with another excuse:
the bio-safety data of rice, okra and mustard was yet to be generated.
It is again open to question as to how field trials for these crops
were okayed when the data on which they were to be assessed had not
been generated.
THOUGH THE CIC directed the DBT to come up with the details on November
22, 2007, the Delhi High Court has kept the CIC’s orders in abeyance
till the next hearing due in April this year.
Further, reports from several state government agencies say that even
local farmers are taken into confidence about the field trials. One
such matter was reported from Andhra Pradesh where Bt okra trials were
conducted in Guntur district with the Department of Biotechnology’s
permission. The state agriculture department’s report on field trials
says: “The farmer was not aware of the purpose of the field trials. The
crops were sown in July 2005 prior to the date of permission accorded
to them, that is November 10, 2005.”
Prof David R. Schubert, professor and head of the Cellular Neurobiology
Laboratories at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies, La Jolla, has
this to say: “The critical issue is that any new GM food crop be
properly tested for safety in carefully controlled studies with open
public access to all of the data before it is allowed for environmental
release in field trials.”
When TEHELKA spoke to Minister of State for Science and Technology and
Ocean Sciences Kapil Sibal, he said, “The DBT is contemplating bringing
in a legislation called the Biotechnology (Safety & Regulation)
Act. It will put in place a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority that
will address all the gap areas in the GM sector."
DISASTER AHEAD?
Scientists not part of the GM lobby
say GM crops are as big a threat as climate change
Every action that releases untested genetically modified organisms
(GMOs) takes us to the brink. Contamination from GM field trials will
be irreversible. Clearly, the regulator’s approvals are perverse,
untenable for India and at variance with the precautionary principle,”
asserts Aruna Rodriguez, who has taken the matter to the SC. Consider
this: in the last 18 months, independent scientists analysed Monsanto’s
own data on rat-feeding studies and found Bt corn varieties already
approved by Europe’s regulator to be toxic. Also, Dr Judy Carman of the
Institute of Health and Environment Research Inc., Kingston Park,
Australia, submitted a report on GM crop safety in July last year. The
report said: “Only nine abstract (out of 60) could be considered to
contain measurable application to the human health. The majority of
these (6 abstracts) found adverse effect from eating GM crops.” Another
study published in the October 2007, Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, USA, shows that crop litter from transgenic Bt
corn washes into streams and adversely affects the growth and survival
of the caddis fly, important food for aquatic life. Prof. David R
Schubert, professor and head, Cellular Neurobiology Laboratories, the
Salk Institute of Biological Studies, La Jolla, is of the view that the
procedure used in the production of GM crops causes enormous number of
mutations in the plant with completely unpredictable consequences.
There are estimates that between 90,000 and 2,00,000 unique chemicals
can be produced, with up to 5,000 in a single species. Many of these
are known as highly toxic, cause cancer, and diseases like Parkinson’s.
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:OshH0BAiUAMJ:www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp%3
Ffilename%3DNe160208uneven.asp+%22uneven+harvest%22+%22tehelka%22&hl=en&ct=clnk
&cd=1&gl=in
Agni Media Pvt. Ltd. © 2000 - 2008
