Genetically-modified brinjal may be the latest Bangla illegal immigrant

Genetically-modified brinjal may be the latest Bangla illegal immigrant 

PUNE: Despite India's moratorium on the release of genetically-modified (GM) Bt brinjal, there is a possibility of gene contamination of Indian brinjals from Bangladesh due to illegal entry of Bt brinjal seeds through the porous border between the two countries. 
Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco), which developed the Bt brinjal technology, has transferred it to the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI). Mahyco, whose 26per cent stake is owned by US life sciences co is hoping that the new Union government will expedite the release of Bt brinjal in India. 

CD Mayee, former co-chairman of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, said: "In the absence of a permission to use them in India, there is a threat of illegal entry of Bt brinjal seeds into India via Bengal, Orissa and Bihar." Eggplant is a popular vegetable in West Bengal, which has banned field trials of genetically modified crops. 

West Bengal's science and technology department, state biotechnology council and the agriculture department are against GM crop field testing. Tushar Chakraborty head of Gene Regulation Lab, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology in Kolkata, said: "The draft biotechnolgy policy of West Bengal specifies this position. But, so far, we have not seen any concrete action in the border areas to stop this menace or threat." 
According to the scientists, if cultivated on large scale, one season will be enough for gene contamination to take place and will be too complex to control. Brinjal and its numerous wild and cultivated varieties and related species may be contaminated. "It will be like the case of GM canola (rapeseed), which is silently being withdrawn due to mass contamination in US and Canada to its wild relatives . South and north Bengal, Assam and Tripura will be at risk," said Chakraborty. ET

Genetically modified ‘super banana’ to be tested on Americans

A vitamin-enhanced ‘super-banana’ developed by scientists is to be tested on humans. The trials are to take place in the US over a six-week period. Researchers aim to start growing the fruit in Uganda by 2020.

The bananas are ‘super’ because they have been genetically engineered to have increased levels of vitamin A – a deficiency of which can be fatal.

Hundreds of thousands die annually worldwide from vitamin A deficiencies, while many others go blind, the project's leader told AFP.

“The consequences of vitamin A deficiency are dire with 650,000-700,000 children worldwide dying...each year and at least another 300,000 going blind,” Professor James Dale stated.

“Good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence-farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food,” Dale said.

The project was created by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“We know our science will work,” Dale said. “We made all the constructs, the genes that went into bananas, and put them into bananas here at QUT.”

Dale added that the genetically modified banana flesh is more orange than a usual banana, but otherwise looks the same.

The highland or East African cooking banana is a dietary staple in East Africa, according to the researchers. However, it has low levels of micronutrients, particularly vitamin A and iron.

If the project is given the go-ahead for Uganda after the US trials, micronutrient enriched/modified crops could also be given the green light for Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania.

“In West Africa farmers grow plantain bananas and the same technology could easily be transferred to that variety as well,” Dale stated.

GMOs and Gates

The claim that genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) pose no risk to human and environmental health is far from settled, despite industry assertions.

In October, 93 international scientists said there was a lack of empirical and scientific evidence to support what they said were false claims made by the biotech industry about a so-called “consensus”on GMO safety. They said more independent research is needed, as existing studies which say that GMOs are safe are overwhelmingly funded and supported by biotech companies.

The Gates Foundation has a history of supporting GMO research and technology – at least since 2010, when the non-profit invested in a low amount of shares in biotechnology giant Monsanto. Gates has amped up support for GMOs so that “poor countries that have the toughest time feeding their people have a process,” adding that “there should be an open-mindedness, and if they can specifically prove [GMO] safety and benefits, foods should be approved, just like they are in middle-income countries.” Such support has resulted in criticism and suspicion of the foundation's agenda.

As for the worry that GMO seeds are increasingly consolidated in the hands of major agribusiness powers, Gates said in February 2013 – after his foundation reportedly sold the approximately $23 million in Monsanto shares it owned – that there are "legitimate issues, but solvable issues" with GMO technology and wider use. He added that one solution may be offering crops already patented but requiring no royalty dues.

Gates has supported the use of GMO crops in the developing world, as well as “large-scale farm land investments by foreign states in the developing world,” AFP wrote in 2012. Months ago, Gates stressed his support for GMO farming in Africa.

“Middle-income countries are the biggest users of GMOs...Small farmers have gotten soy beans and cotton and things like that. But we’re trying to get African agriculture up to high productivity – it’s about a third of rich-world productivity right now – and we need the full range of scientific innovation, with really good safety checking, to work on behalf of the poor,” Gates told Quartz in January.

GMO crops are now grown in 28 countries, or on 12 percent of the world's arable land, with the acreage doubling every five years. However, in the European Union, only two GMO varieties have so far been licensed for commercial harvesting (compared to 96 in the US).

In the US, an overwhelming majority of Americans say they support the labeling of GMO products – an effort that has gained traction in some states and interest in nearly all others.

Opponents of labeling – including powerful food industry and biotechnology players – are currentlymobilizing their resources on the national level to stem the tide of sentiment against GMO proliferation. These groups have worked with supportive members of Congress to introduce federal legislation that would block states from passing mandatory GMO labeling measures like Vermont's, despite the “right to know” movement’s rising popularity.

GMOs have been in the food supply since the 1990s, and are included in roughly 70 to 80 percent of products available to American consumers, according to food manufacturers. The most widely used GMO crops in the US are corn, soybeans, and canola. RT.com

Survey: Overwhelming Majority Of Americans Say Want GMO Labeling

An overwhelming majority of Americans think that genetically engineered (GE) foods should be labeled before they are sold, according to a new Consumer Reports poll released on Monday.

The nationally-representative phone survey found that 92 percent of respondents think that GE foods, or those made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), should be labeled accordingly. Further, 92 percent also think that the government should legally require the labeling of GE salmon—which may soon be approved and sold in stores—despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently requires neither labeling nor pre-market safety assessments of GE food.

The survey, taken in April 2014, assessed the importance of various factors that consumers weigh when purchasing food. According to the results, 72 percent said it was important or very important to avoid genetically engineered ingredients when making purchases.

“This poll underscores that, across the country, consumers want labeling of GE food, including GE salmon, and consider safety standards set by the government of such food imperative,” said Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union.

Growing public opposition to GE foods comes as numerous states have begun to surpass the FDA by passing their own labeling legislation.

Last month, Vermont became the first state to require the labeling of foods with genetically modified ingredients. Similar legislation, which included “trigger clauses” that require a certain number of other states to also enact similar laws, passed in both Connecticut and Maine. Lawmakers in Massachusetts, Oregon, Colorado, and New York are also weighing labeling proposals. http://www.mintpressnews.com/

Food For Thought

Food For Thought

espite last-minute clearances given to stalled field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops by former environment minister Veerappa Moily, seed companies have failed to benefit so far. With the brief window left in the ongoing sowing season, they remain hopeful and are mounting pressure on the new government to ease procedural requirements.

Among the UPA government’s many attempts to woo India Inc. in its final days was its approval of field trials for GM crops. However, the failure to officially intimate the seed companies of these approvals meant that field trials could not be undertaken at the beginning of the kharif season. Plus, the clearance given on 27 February came with the rider that state governments must approve the trials on a per-crop basis, leading to further delays, claim seed companies.

The approvals were a re-validation of the earlier clearance given by the regulator, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), in March 2013. It was applicable to 10 genetically engineered crops, among which were maize, rice, wheat and cotton. New applications were taken up in April 2014 but no formal announcement was made. The GEAC, which comes under the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), has had  three meetings in consecutive months since March to discuss proposals pending since last year. Though approvals have been reported in the media, no official letters were sent out and the decisions of the meetings were not put up on the website as per requirement. As a result, no immediate action on the ground was possible.

Monsanto India MD Gyanendra Shukla explains: “Our permit for maize trials, which was issued earlier, has been re-validated. For new proposals, however, we are waiting for a response from the GEAC.” Companies like Monsanto India, Bayer CropScience, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds, government universities and research institutes like the Directorate of  Oil Seeds Research, Central Potato Research Institute, International Crops Research Institute for Semi-arid Tropics and Indian Agricultural Research Institute have been at the forefront of the pro-GM debate in India. There are over 150 local and international private and public sector institutions developing and selling seeds.

Unhappy about the prolonged delay, since former environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had, in 2013, suspended all GEAC meetings and field trials citing an ongoing case in the Supreme Court (SC), seed companies say India is, as a result, decades behind in science and technology development in the sector. Says Joerg Rehbein, head of Bayer CropScience Indian Subcontinent, “The delay in the approval of field trials has also significantly lowered the confidence level of companies involved in GM crop research.”

The Delayed Dialogue
Any new trials this year are subject to states granting no-objection certificates (NOC). In principle, states like Gujarat, Punjab and Maharashtra have approved the trials. But even with the in-principle approvals, there are crop-by-crop variations — for example, the unwillingness of Punjab to permit GM potato field trials. Again, states like Odisha and West Bengal have flatly refused to permit GM trials. The delay in issuing NOCs, along with other administrative protocols of tying up with the local agricultural institute or university and locating and leasing land, has left very little time in the current sowing season, say seed companies which complain of huge economic and time setbacks.
 

AROUND THE WORLD

• As of 2011, 73% of the global GM market was controlled by 10 companies • As of 2013, agricultural land under GM globally was 3.4%, or 170 million hectares, of the 5 billion hectares of total agricultural land • Of this, 40.8% was in the US, 20.4% in Brazil, 14.03% in Argentina , 6.8% in Canada, 6.3% in India, 2.34% in China and 8.33% across 22 other countries • 2012 was the first year in which developing countries accounted for a majority (52%) of the total GM harvest

Currently, market estimates place investment in agricultural bio-technology in India at around Rs 10,000 crore. Most seed companies, citing competition among other reasons, are unwilling to share numbers, especially in India where the industry is still in its infancy. For example, though it is known that Monsanto invests Rs 7,500 crore on in-breeding and biotechnology globally, spent just “a few crores” in India.

Given that development of a single strain in a particular plant costs close to Rs 500 crore and anything from 8-10 years, the seed manufacturers are eager to resolve concerns and start testing and commercialising their products.

Monsanto India’s Shukla believes that given the seasonal nature of agricultural research and its dependence on the monsoon, the timing of decisions with respect to trials is critical. Seetharama Nadoor, executive director with the Bangalore-based Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises (ABLE), says he recently (almost two months after Moily’s clearance) received intimation from the MoEF that the GEAC will be functioning normally and all procedures in place for clearances will resume. He adds that the letter does not address some concerns of the companies waiting to start field trials. “We have written back to them to clarify three points — publish minutes of the last GEAC meeting online; send GEAC approval letter to the companies whose trials have been approved; and assist in getting state government NOCs,” says Nadoor.

After the 18-month limbo , the only  bright spot for biotech companies in the wake of the February clearance has been its affect on share prices — Monsanto India’s stock jumped 5 per cent while Bayer CropScience rose 1.41 per cent.
 

break-pahe-break

The Long And Short Of GM
The very mention of GM crops usually generates extreme reactions — either you hate it or you love it. Thus, many an approval is followed by a hasty withdrawal, a court stay order or government waffling. Says Ajay Kakra, associate director, Agriculture and Natural Resources practice, PwC India, while the technology is very promising, “the trouble starts in application, especially of food crops as there is no concrete data available on its implications on direct human consumption”.

The pending petition in the Supreme Court was filed in 2005 and was used by Natarajan to withhold permission for field trials. The court is yet to decide the case and is said to be studying the Technical Expert Committee’s reports that demand an overhaul of regulations, protection of bio-diversity and an independent monitoring body, among others, before allowing open field trials. Petitioners against GM crops claim Moily’s nod for trials can be interpreted as a violation.

Mhow-based Aruna Rodrigues, the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court for a moratorium on GM crops says the regulatory mechanism is lax and porous, marked by a serious conflict of interest. GM contamination of non-GM crops from field trials, even under stringent conditions, is a proven fact. In India, she points out, BNBt, a local cotton gene, was found contaminated with Monsanto’s Bt cotton; whether “accidental or deliberate” is not known, according to the S.K. Sopory Committee report. Rodrigues has submitted an additional affidavit in court against the February approval for open field trials — the SC is yet to take it up.

The issue of propriety of GM technology is a big concern in India where most farmers are poor. Over the years, Monsanto has sued and won against 100-odd farmers for infringement of patents — even in fields where farmers had no clue as to how GM traits entered produce from their fields.

 

THE GM JOURNEY A bumpy ride so far...

Mar 2002: Use of GM technology for commercial agricultural use allowed, starting with Bt cotton, the only GM crop grown commercially in India till date Sep 2005: Writ petition filed by Aruna Rodrigues in SC seeking a moratorium on the release of any GM crop, pending a comprehensive and rigorous bio-safety protocol Oct 2009: Bt brinjal cleared for commercialisation Feb 2010: Moratorium imposed on the release of Bt brinjal after much protest Feb 2010: MoEF minister Jairam Ramesh submits report on Bt brinjal, requesting an indefinite moratorium May 2012: The Supreme Court constitutes the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) to look into the matter Aug 2012: A parliamentary standing committee says that a high-level committee is needed to decide the fate of GM crops Oct 2012: TEC submits an interim report, and then a final report in Aug 2013. It demands a revision of the regulations, evaluation of GMOs by an independent body. A ruling is still pending on the issue Mar 2013: Jayanthi Natarajan, then MoEF minister, disallows further field trials based on TEC report; writes a note to the PMO voicing her concerns Mar 2013: GEAC holds a meeting, nothing comes of it Jan 2014: PM Manmohan Singh says GMO important to India’s food security; scientists ask SC to allow trials, list benefits of GMOs crops Feb 2014: MoEF minister Veerappa Moily gives the go-ahead for open field trials, with the rider that state governments must approve of them first Mar 2014: Rodrigues files an additional affidavit requesting the SC to take action on the recent clearance of field trials, since the matter is still sub judice Apr 2014: Three court hearings between 22 Apr to 9 May; no judgement yet; next hearing on 15 July

Regulations to do with GM crops are full of loopholes, says Kakra. “There are two aspects to GM regulation — first, the rules for trials, which are stringent. Then, there is labelling, where India has rules for a few crops, leaving scope for many non-labelled crops to enter mainstream human consumption chains.” Others like Nadoor say  the technology is essential in India. For example, a recent estimate by the National Research Centre on Biotechnology put the annual loss to the pigeon pea crop (arhar dal) in the region of 30-40 per cent — largely due to pests and vagaries of the weather. The need for technology becomes all the more critical given that India already uses all its cultivable land, with virtually no room for expansion. 

Bayer CropScience’s  Rehbein says there is a lot of potential for GM crops in India. Citing the success of Bt cotton, he says, “A farmer can grow 2-3 crops a year compared to most Western countries where farmers can grow only 1-1.5.” He adds that the new government will give the sector a boost. “Based on the approvals, we aim to plant the trials in the kharif season subject to NOCs from the states.”
 

KEEPING WATCH There are several Acts and rules that govern GMOs:

The release of transgenic crops, or genetically modified organisms (GMO), in India is governed by the Indian Environment Protection Act 1986 GMOs are covered by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Ministry of Agriculture In 1989, the government outlined the rules for manufacture, use, import, export and storage of hazardous microorganisms/ genetically engineered organisms or cells Five authorities were created to manage GMOs — the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), Institutional Biosafety Committees (IBSC), Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM), State Biotechnology Coordination Committee (SBCC) and District Level Committee (DLC). The last two are not fully operational as yet, while the GEAC is the apex body of the lot Copyright issues for GMO come under the Indian Patent Act 1970, which outlines rules on patenting of seeds or commercial use of patented agricultural products

Hoping for the best, seed manufacturers are looking to streamline and regularise the process. Considering Gujarat is among the first and biggest users of Bt cotton — the only commercial GM crop in India — the hope is not baseless.  

moyna@businessworld.in; mmatbworld@gmail.com

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