Odisha opposes biotech bill

Odisha opposes biotech bill
BHUBANESWAR: The state government sought withdrawal of Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, stating that it was undermining its authority.

Agriculture minister Debi Prasad Mishra on Monday in a letter to T Subbarami Reddy, chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment & Forests, requested him to recommend scrapping of the "unconstitutional" Bill. The Bill is now being considered by the committee after it was introduced in the budget session of Parliament.

Mishra, in his letter, pointed out that the Bill proposes a decision-making process on introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops ignoring the state governments and local self-governments. "Any decision to introduce a GM crop or permit its field trial in Odisha must ultimately rest with Odisha government, which alone is empowered by the Constitution to look after agriculture and health," he said.

Pointing out mounting evidence on ill-effects of genetically modified crops on human health, environment, livelihood and food security of people, the minister warned of the looming danger if the Bill becomes a regulation.

Mishra said risk assessment proposals in BRAI fail to take into account socio-economic and cultural impacts of GM technology. TOI

Bangladesh takes to GM food crops

Bangladesh takes to GM food crops


DHAKA] Bangladesh has become the first South Asian country to approve commercial cultivation of a genetically modified (GM) food crop — brinjal (also known as eggplant or aubergine) spliced with a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis .  
 
On 28 October, Bangladesh's National Committee on Biosafety (NBC) approved cultivation of four indigenous varieties of brinjal incorporating a gene from the B. thuringiensis (Bt) to make it resistant to attacks by the fruit and shoot borer (FSB), a common pest in South and Southeast Asia.
 
“We will make seeds and distribute them among the farmers. Hopefully, the vegetables will be available in the market next year,” Mohammad Rafiqul Islam Mondal, director-general of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), tells SciDev.Net. 
 
According to BARI scientists, the Bt protein in GM brinjal disrupts the digestive systems of the FSB pests, causing them to die within three days of ingestion.
 
The approval comes in the teeth of protests from a section of health,agriculture and environmental activists, accusing the government of ignoring the possibility of negative impacts on public health from consuming the GM version of a popular vegetable.
 
Farida Akhtar, founder of UBINIG, a Bangladeshi NGO which maintains community seed banks, says that Bangladesh is a 'centre of origin' of brinjal and home to over 100 varieties. "These varieties now face genetic contamination from the GM varieties through natural cross-pollination," she tells SciDev.Net.  
 
NBC has, however, justified the approval saying that Bt brinjal would significantly reduce the need to use pesticides and announced that various safeguards were being put into place.
 
Bangladesh's Bt brinjal varieties are derived in part from similar GM varieties developed in India by the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) and Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, the Indian subsidiary of the US-based Monsanto Corp.
 
While TNAU had announced that Bt brinjal was safe for consumption, widespread protests compelled the Indian government to order an indefinite moratorium on its release in February 2010.
 
The Philippines has also halted trials on Bt brinjal since 2011 because ofhealth and safety concerns, represented by activists at its supreme court.  
 
Contrastingly, Bangladesh is moving ahead to release more GM food crops, including a vitamin A-enriched rice variety called ‘golden rice’.  
 
Exporters of agricultural produce in Bangladesh are apprehensive that GM crops may cause them to lose markets in importing countries opposed to the technology. SCIDEV

79% want councils to have power over GM crops - poll

79% want councils to have power over GM crops - poll

New Zealand

A group opposed to genetic modification has released a poll showing almost 80% of respondents want councils to retain the power to create GM-free zones.

The phone survey of 1000 people was commissioned by Pure Hawke's Bay and carried out by Colmar-Brunton.

Under proposed changes to the Resource Management Act, central government rather than councils would have the power to decide where GM crops can be grown.

However, Pure Hawke's Bay says 79% of the people surveyed want decision making powers to stay with the councils.

Spokesperson Bruno Chambers says GM free products command a premium price and the group wants GM-free zones so farmers can grow unmodified crops with less risk of contamination.

The survey has a plus or minus margin of error of 3.1%.

RadioNewZealand

Research on GM food in China will not stop: scholar

Research on GM food in China will not stop: scholar

Jiang Gaoming, a researcher at the Institute of Botany of The Chinese Academy of Sciences, said research on genetically modified (GM) food in China will continue no matter what problems arise.

In 2004, the Chinese government listed the cultivation of GM crops as a major scientific development for the country, and it allocated a total budget of more than 20 billion Chinese yuan (US$3.28 billion). Since then, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have become a very popular area for research, Jiang stated.

The 49-year-old Jiang is a noted anti-GMO scholar in China. He has released several theses questioning the engineering techniques used in the production of GMOs.

He pointed out that an online survey projects that over 90% of Chinese nationals consider GM food unsafe and opposed the commercial production of GM crops in China.

More than 10 years ago, research into GMOs was a niche field of research until a book triggered a discussion on the genetic engineering techniques amongst the Chinese people.

Genetic Engineering-Dream or Nightmare?: The Brave New World of Bad Science and Big Business, a book that opposed genetic engineering, raised the first public debate on GMOs among the Chinese people in 2001.

The book, first published in 1998 and translated and published in Chinese in 2001, noted that GM food could potentially endanger the health of humans and animals. More importantly, the book informed the Chinese people of the debate on GM crops raging in Western society.

Following the public reaction to the book, Greenpeace, a non-governmental environmental organization headquartered in Amsterdam, announced in 2002 that GMOs had been found in food products in Hong Kong.

Zhang Jing, a Greenpeace official, stated that the organization had been following the development of GM crops in China since 2002.

So far, Greenpeace has released 23 reports on GMOs in China.

In 2005, the organization announced that it had found GM crops being grown illegally in Wuhan and Jingzhou during four separate investigations in Hubei. In the latest incident to attract the public spotlight, genetically modified rice was being tested on children in Hengyang in 2012, in what subsequently became known as the "golden rice incident."

Zhang claimed the government's research and development agencies should focus on the potential harm of GMOs to humans rather than simply advertising the advantages of GM food.

An immunology professor at Peking University, Wang Yuedan, said he supported techniques to grow GM food, but he was opposed to GM food being widely promoted without allowing public debate to decide whether it was safe for consumption.

In China, the commercial production of GM crops needs approval. It was said that the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) planned to grant a security certificate for GM rice, but this did not happen due to the intense debate among the public.

Since 2006, the MOA has issued security certificates for GM papaya and insect-resistant rice, but only GM cotton and papaya are allowed to be produced commercially.

A food law issued in 2012 mandated that GM techniques cannot be adopted as the main food source in the country without prior approval. Wantchinatimes