GMW: LEGAL ACTION FOR CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE DEMANDED AGAINST GEAC

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GMW: LEGAL ACTION FOR CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE DEMANDED AGAINST GEAC

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:09:51 GMT

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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EXCERPTS: Gene Campaign [based in New Delhi, India] today called for

legal action under the Environment Protection Act, against the members of

the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) for criminal

negligence and willful suppression of facts in the Bt cotton case,

leading to

grave economic losses to the farming community, resulting in several

instances of farmer suicides.

 

Dr Suman Sahai said that GEAC's silence and refusal to take action in

the Bt cotton case, where fresh evidence of failures is coming in

everyday, indicates that influences are at work which favor the continued

sale of Bt cotton seed even if it means devastating losses to farmers.

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GENE CAMPAIGN DEMANDS LEGAL ACTION AGAINST GEAC

Press Release, 14 November 2005

http://www.genecampaign.org

 

Gene Campaign today called for legal action under the Environment

Protection Act, against the members of the Genetic Engineering Approval

Committee (GEAC) for criminal negligence and willful suppression of facts

in the Bt cotton case, leading to grave economic losses to the farming

community, resulting in several instances of farmer suicides.

 

A number of studies conducted by a variety of agencies, including

government departments have reported over the last three to four years

that

Bt cotton is failing in many regions and farmers are suffering huge

losses. The GEAC has so far taken no action in this regard.

 

Gene Campaign's studies starting with the first harvest of Bt cotton in

Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra in 2002-03, showed that the crop had

performed so poorly that 60 % of the farmers could not even recover their

investment. Recent data from a monitoring team set up by twenty

grassroots level organizations working on agriculture, have documented

the

widespread failure of Bt cotton crops in Madhya Pradesh and Andhra.

 

*Many varieties of Bt cotton have failed to germinate so the farmer has

had to buy the seed two to three times.

 

*The mandatory insect management strategy of planting non-Bt refuges is

not being followed by the majority of farmers, thus ensuring that this

technology can not work in the field for long but the GEAC has not

acted against this violation.

 

*Earlier reports that the quality of the Bt cotton is inferior to

non-Bt cotton is being substantiated year after year for a range of Bt

cotton varieties.

 

*The rampant spread of illegal cotton varieties, many of them spurious

and not even containing the Bt gene, have flooded the market in all

cotton belts and the farmers are being fooled by unscrupulous elements.

 

*The Bt technology has proved to be largely ineffective against the

bollworm so the pesticide use has not shown any significant reduction and

coupled with the expensive seeds, the economics of Bt cotton are

adverse for the farmers.

 

*The clear beneficiaries are the seed companies who have GEAC's

permission to sell their seeds despite recorded failures.

 

As all this unfolds across the cotton growing regions, a study

conducted at the Nagpur based Central Institute for Cotton Research

(CICR),

provides the scientific basis for the failure of the Bt technology in

India and shows why this technology developed for the US, cannot be

transplanted here. The US cotton is protected by Bt technology (in

which the

toxin expression is high in leaves), because its main pest, the tobacco

budworm, is a leaf feeder and therefore susceptible to the Bt approach.

In India the main cotton pest is the bollworm, which feeds on the

cotton bolls, rather than the leaves . The CICR study clearly shows that

with the Bt technology in India, the toxin is practically non-existent in

the bolls which are the principal target of the bollworm, hence the

technology will not work to protect Indian cotton.

 

In the face of all this chaos, farmer losses and widespread crop

failure, the GEAC has not taken any action.

 

- There has been no action taken against suppliers of Bt seeds,

 

- no instructions for compensation to farmers,

 

- no action to stop violations and control spurious seeds,

 

- no information on whether the GEAC has conducted a fact finding

study, nor any indication of the findings, if such a study was conducted.

 

- But the GEAC continues to release a series of Bt cotton varieties

year after year.

 

Dr Suman Sahai, Director of Gene Campaign said this state of affairs

cannot be allowed to continue, the GEAC must be held accountable for its

deeds of omission and commission and be made to explain its actions.

Gene Campaign had issued notice to the GEAC under section 19(b) of the

Environment Protection Act (1986) on August 3 2005, for commission of

offence under the Act, by continuing the approval to Bt cotton varieties

despite evidence of its widespread failure. The GEAC had 60 days to

respond to the notice which fell on 2 October, 2005. Gene Campaign said

they waited for an additional 30 days to give the GEAC ample time to

respond but they have not done so.

 

The failure of the GEAC to respond to the notice amounts to admission

of the charges leveled against it and hence legal action should be

initiated for violation of the provisions of the Environment

Protection Act

(1986) leading to grave economic losses to the farming community,

resulting in several instances of suicides.

 

Dr Suman Sahai said that GEAC's silence and refusal to take action in

the Bt cotton case where fresh evidence of failures is coming in

everyday, indicates that influences are at work which favor the continued

sale of Bt cotton seed even if it means devastating losses to farmers.

She

said that after the clear evidence provided by the senior scientists at

the Nagpur based Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), that the

Bt technology in India is destined to fail because it simply does not

address the cotton growing conditions in India, GEAC has still not come

out with a position on the CICR study. GEAC has held two meetings on

the CICR findings on 10 August and 16 September, 2005 but has made no

comments. This raises further suspicion about the motivations and conduct

of the GEAC.

 

Dr. Suman Sahai

 

Contact: DR. SUMAN SAHAI

Phone: - +91 11 29556248; 98-110-41332

Email: genecamp

 

 

 

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