INDIA: Pawar asked to stop promoting GMOs

Pawar asked to stop promoting GMOs

Citing an interview given by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to CNN-IBN on the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Group (TEC) on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), the Coalition for a GM-Free India has urged him to stop promoting GMOs in India.

In a letter written to the Minister on Wednesday, the coalition reminded him that he had agreed with the view that those who were raising concerns and asking for a proper machinery to be put in place for evaluating GMOs were “right.”

Yet, the Agriculture Ministry was “derailing the fair process of evaluation of the current regulatory regime,” by bringing in an expert who allegedly has conflict of interest.

On the Minister’s view that testing of GMOs was required and banning field trials as suggested by the TEC, would be “an extreme step,” coalition representatives Kavita Kuruganti and Rajesh Krishnan said there was no “sequential testing” in India. The recommendations of a Task Force on Agricultural Biotechnology that recommended need assessment for GMOs and assessment of alternatives had never been followed.

Countering Mr. Pawar’s argument that Bt cotton had been a success in India, the coalition members said scientists concluded that yields had been most impressive when Bt cotton had not expanded in the country and output was on the decline in the recent past.

“The picture with regard to pesticide use is unclear, even as it is apparent that fertilizer use in cotton has gone up, irrigated cotton area has increased and there has been a massive shift from varietal cotton to hybrids.”

The activists rebutted Mr. Pawar’s argument that several countries were taking advantage of the technology and improving their productivity and production saying there were only “a handful of countries” and studies showed that the yields varied across crops, regions and years.

“We also know that technically, no transgenic crop exists in commercial use out there which can increase yields.”

Urging for democratisation of science and technology and of related decision-making at all levels, the activists said the kind of public debate witnessed on transgenic technologies should be encouraged.

Arguing that transgenic technology had nothing to do with “food security” in terms of increasing yields or addressing deep-rooted access and distribution issues or ensuring sustainable development, the activists said countries that adopted GM crops on a significant scale had deteriorating or decelerating food security.

“We urge your Ministry to drop this fallacious argument given that the more pressing need is to revive the rural agrarian economy and focusing on agro-ecological alternatives that will improve production, reduce cost of cultivation, bring down indebtedness and reduce risks in farming.” THE HINDU