BT COTTON toxicity data to be made public + AVIAN FLU + Remote Sensing Data

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NEWS Bulletin from Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development ********************************** 1. Bt cotton’s toxicity data to be made public AVIAN FLU In India------ 2. International poultry ban worries govt, industry 3. ... egg exports from Namakkal crash by 50% in less than 3 days 4. ‘Real time crop status soon using remote sensing’ ------------------------------- Bt cotton’s toxicity data to be made public http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Bt-cottons-toxicity-data-to-be-made-public/208022/ ASHOK B SHARMAPosted online: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 2256 hrs IST New Delhi, Aug 1 The government has agreed to place the toxicity and allergenicity data relating to Bt cotton in public domain. Additional solicitor general Amarender Saran said, during the hearing on a petition calling for a moratorium on GM crops in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, that the government was willing to share the data related to toxicity and allergenicity of Bt Cotton and would also hand over a soft copy of it to all the petitioners. The data would be placed on the website hosted by the GEAC. The bench consisting of chief justice K G Balakrishnan , Justice CK Raqvindran and Justice Dalbir Bhandari acting on a fresh application filed by Aruna Rodrigues also issued notices to the government for making public the protocol for detecting 0.01% genetic contamination in the field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops. Rodrigues' counsel Prashant Bhushan said: "We had filed an application before the apex court not to allow field trials of GM crops until biosafety committees are set up in states concerned. We have also asked that CD Mayee be removed as the co-chairperson of GEAC as he is on the board of a global biotech promoter agency - ISAAA. Mayee's holding dual posts amounts to conflict of interest. The court has accepted our application and has sent notices to the government." The application had also sought that the government should be directed to provide a comprehensive

list of the 24 varieties and hybrids that were approved between May 1 and September 22, last year under nine-listed crops, namely Bt Cotton, transgenic okra, tomato cauliflower, brinjal, rice, castor, groundnut and potato. According to Rodrigues' application states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh were yet to constitute State Biotechnology Coordination Committees (SBCCs) necessary for monitoring and inspecting ongoing field trials under rules framed in 1989 under Environment Protection Act. According to Bhushan, the documents acquired through RTI applications showed that these states did not have such committees or even know about field trials of GM crops. They were not even sure if they had committees in place. Other RTI documents collected showed that Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh were ignorant about the trials happening in their respective states, although GEAC was supposed to

apprise the state governments of the approvals. ---------- International poultry ban worries govt, industry http://www.financialexpress.com/news/International-poultry-ban-worries-govt-industry/207936/ ASHOK B SHARMAPosted online: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 0116 hrs IST New Delhi, Jul 31 The reports of countries imposing ban on the entry of Indian poultry products have raised the concerns of both the government and the poultry industry. According to recent reports UAE, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Oman have imposed ban on imports of poultry

products from India following the notification on July 25, 2007 about the occurrence of avian flu on a single poultry unit in village Chingmeirong in East Imphal district in Manipur in northeastern India. “We have so far received confirmed reports of UAE and Sri Lanka imposing ban on Indian poultry imports. We also came to know from other sources that Bhutan and Oman have also imposed similar ban,” the joint secretary in the department of animal husbandry, Upma Chaudhary told FE. She said that earlier in February 2006 when there was a first confirmed incidence of bird flu in the country, more than 12 country imposed ban on Indian poultry products. After successful culling and containment operations the country was declared by the world animal health organisation – OIE - as free from the influence of avian flu in August 2006. “Even after August 2006 some countries namely US, Pakistan and Bangladesh did not lift

the ban,” she said. India’s poultry exports increased from Rs 110 million in 1993-94 to a peak of Rs 3260 million in 2005-06. The incidence of avian flu was a setback to exports and domestic sales and the Rs 150,000 million industry suffered an estimated loss of Rs 30,000 million. The major destination of exports of Indian live poultry, eggs, hatching eggs, frozen eggs, egg powder and poultry meat are Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Japan, Denmark, Poland, US, Angola and the West Asian countries. The industry has appealed to the government to take up culling and containment operations and zoning of poultry producing areas of the country. They have suggested that since the recent occurrence of Avian Flu is in a single unit in the remotest part of the country and there is no evidence of any occurrence in other parts of the country, the government should declare other areas as free from the influence of Avian

Flu. Chaudhary said, “Zoning of poultry areas is under the active consideration of the government. It is not a simple task. It involves various factors for generating data and evidences before we can effectively lay our claim before the OIE.” -------- ... egg exports from Namakkal crash by 50% in less than 3 days http://www.financialexpress.com/news/egg-exports-from-Namakkal-crash-by-50-in-less-than-3-days/207937/ Jaishankar JayaramiahPosted online: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 0118 hrs IST Bangalore, Jul 31 With the World Organisation

for Animal Health (OIE) putting India on the bird flu-affected countries list on July 26 following outbreak of the avian flu in Manipur, Indian egg exporters have started feeling the pinch. Industry sources said they expect a loss of nearly Rs 32-36 lakh per day from the ban of egg and poultry products’ exports to the UAE, Yemen, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. In fact, in the past three days, egg exports have shown a steep decline of 50% from Namakkal region alone that accounts for 90% of the total eggexports from the country. Sources said while Namakkal region exported 45 lakh eggs per day, it has now come down to almost 25 lakh eggs, forcing the farmers to reduce prices. However, chairperson of the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC), Anuradha Desai, who is also the chairperson of Asia’s largest poultry firm, Pune-based Venkateshwara Hatcheries, said the cut in exports will not

affect the poultry industry. She said that the dip in export orders from the UAE were mainly because of the weather condition. “Already egg exports declined by 3 containers per day owing to the summer in UAE, which is during June to August. Now, the UAE’s ban may cut one more container, which will not affect the market,” Desai said. She said, “If there was loss in export orders from the Gulf region it will be made up by the Indian market that was already witnessing shortage of eggs.” Industry sources said the poultry industry had lost Rs 10,500 crore during the last year’s bird flu. Egg exports were alone hit for seven months between February and September 2006-------- ‘Real time crop status soon using remote sensing’ http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Real-time-crop-status-soon-using-remote-sensing/207696/ ASHOK B SHARMAPosted online: Monday , July 30, 2007 at 2329 hrs IST New Delhi, Jul 30 The Union ministry for science and technology has stepped in to help assessing the health of standing crops and forecasting crop production through remote sensing operations. Application of remote sensing for assessing crop situation is, however not a new exercise in the country. It is being applied by the Union agriculture ministry in collaboration with the department of space in the project called FASAL for forecasting crop production. “Our project is of a different

kind. It would simulate data from six satellites and develop bio-mass index for different crops and forecast the health of the crops on real time basis, which would eventually help in forecasting production. Farmers can also be warned in time about the danger to standing crops,” said the Union minister for science and technology, Kapil Sibal while addressing mediapersons on Monday. The new project will source real time data from IRS List 3 satellite of Indian Space Research Organisation, the US satellite – Land Set and from four satellites of the global consortium – Observing System. The joint secretary in the science and technology ministry, Sanjiv Naik said, “The satellite data would help us to construct us to construct bio-mass index, but we would also need GIS data relating to village boundary and other auxillary data like soil and atmospheric moisture, rainfall, temperature.” Sibal said that capacity has been built to assess per hectare production in a village for wheat, mustard, gram in winter season and for paddy and cotton in summer season. He said that a pilot project was taken up for Haryana in 2005-06 which predicted the damage to the wheat crop due to sudden rise in temperature in February 2006. In the current year, he said that the project has given the first estimate of crop area in Haryana up to July 19 and would provide such forecasts on fortnightly basis. He said that the Haryana government was satisfied with the performance of the project. The minister said that the project operation would also be undertaken in some areas in Punjab. -----------

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