GMW: Biosafety breakdown in India/GEAC admits not enough toxicity studies

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GMW: Biosafety breakdown in India/GEAC admits not enough

toxicity studies

" GM WATCH " <info

Sat, 1 Jul 2006 20:58:46 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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1.GEAC on large-scale violations of biosafety norms in field trials

2.6 years of biosafety breakdown in India

 

EXCERPT

6 years on: " The same kind of secrecy, the same kind of lax

monitoring…. and the same kind of violations " (item 2)

 

GEAC has admitted that it has not conducted enough toxicity studies.

(item 1)

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1.GEAC wants varsities to supervise on GM crop trials

ASHOK B SHARMA

Financial Express, July 01 2006

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=132440

 

NEW DELHI, JUNE 30: The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC)

on Friday decided to involve the state agriculture universities in

bio-safety studies and field trials of transgenic crops. It deferred the

decision on the proposal submitted by Mahyco asking permission for large

scale multi-locational field trials of Bt Brinjal.

 

GEAC also deliberated on report submitted by the CD Mayee panel on Bt

cotton and related issues. Mayee is at present the chairman of

Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) and is also the

co-chairman of

GEAC.

 

NGOs had complained about large-scale violations of biosafety norms in

the field trials. The GEAC has taken up this issue seriously and asked

the Mayee panel to suggest measures for strengthening biosafety norms,

said Desh Deepak Verma of GEAC.

 

Farmers' organisations and NGOs had also cited reported cases of

mortality in sheeps grazing over Bt cotton fields in Warangal district in

Andhra Pradesh. In this, context, GEAC has asked the promoter agency for

transgenic crops, department of biotechnology to investigate the causes

of such deaths. It has also asked the Andhra Pradesh government to send

factual reports on this situation.

 

GEAC has admitted that it has not conducted enough toxicity studies. It

said that it would conduct toxicity studies on Bt cotton leaves. The

proposed largescale field trials of four Bt brinjal hybrids developed by

Mahyco is now held up. The NGOs had also alleged, quoting scientific

evidences, that Bt brinjal may prove to be hazardous to health and

environment.

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2.LENS ON BT COTTON

Persisting on two left feet

by Keya Acharya

INDIA TOGETHER, 26 June 2006

http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/jun/agr-btreglate.htm

 

Five and a half years ago, a visit to nine Karnataka farmers who were

trialing Bt cotton showed regulatory breakdown. Six years on, despite

fresh criticism by NGOs, scientists and the media, India's regulatory

practice with transgenic crops appears to have offered a repeat

performance of its 2000 conduct, says Keya Acharya.

 

26 June 2006 - Five and a half years ago, in December 2000, I visited

the fields of nine cotton farmers in Bellary, Davangere, Koppal, Raichur

and Shimoga districts of Karnataka selected by Monsanto-Mahyco in

August-September 2000 to conduct Bt cotton trials. The seeds were

Mahyco's

hybrids incorporated with Monsanto's Bt gene Bollgard.

 

I had found no independent monitoring of the plots, in this case by the

branches of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) as stipulated

by the state government. Eight of the nine farmers said nobody from the

Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) had come to inspect their

fields. GEAC is the central regulator under the Ministry of Environment

and Forests (MOEF). The ninth farmer, Ningappa from Koppal, said a

group came with the agriculture department official and had a meeting

with

him once during the season. And a 'Balwinder Singh' signed himself in

Ningappa's book as coming from Punjab and Hyderabad. [ARTICLE CONTINUES

BENEATHTHIS TABLE]

***

TABLE

Original issues from 6 years ago

• Inadequate maintenance of buffer plots;

• No knowledge of the genotype (variety of seed) received;

• Inordinate reliance on fertilizer/pesticide agents' directives by

all farmers, not just Bt ones

• No confidence in government agricultural extension advice, if any

was extended.

• Poor execution of integrated pest management (IPM) methods in the

field, in 'non Bt' areas, pointed to inadequate dissemination by the

agricultural extension system.

• Farmers stated that they would try Bt cotton, regardless of

opposition by political parties and organisations like the KRRS or

others;

that 2-3 crop seasons would tell them how the seed would fare.

• Far better results from indigenous hybrid cotton varieties (i.e.

those without one or more foreign parentage).

***

[ARTICLE CONTINUED] Not one of them said any government official took

soil samples, or seeds or any material for testing. On querying about

GEAC's lack of presence in the fields, the then Department of

Biotechnology (DBT) Secretary Manju Sharma's reply was that GEAC was

responsible

along with Mahyco for ground monitoring, the implications of which

sounded like a government-Mahyco collaboration.

 

Another fundamental flaw was of late sowing due to delayed distribution

of seed by the company, which resulted in the crop having missed the

peak bollworm infestation period.

 

Field violations and the government's lack of response to them were

subsequently reported in 2002, by the Stockholm Environment Institute and

the Centre for Budget & Policy Studies-Bangalore. They study looked at

Mahyco field trials, interviewing Bt cotton farmers who had

participated in the 2001 Mahyco trials together with scientists from

the UAS.

Their report highlighted continuing problems, including late supply of

seeds by Mahyco, delaying the sowing season yet again. " It is curious

that

the delay should recur " , said the report, considering the GEAC ordered

this retrial due to NGO objections that the pre-2001 trials missed the

peak bollworm season because of late sowing.

 

Also, farmers were permitted to harvest and sell the Bt trial crop and

use its residues for various purposes, in apparent violation of GEAC

conditions to Mahyco, raising serious questions of whether the GEAC was

aware of how the trials were being conducted. In addition, DBT allowed

Mahyco to set up, and identify, members for a monitoring committee,

raising questions about DBT's credibility and competency in setting up

independent regulatory systems - monitoring committee's checking of field

trials thereafter desultory and not rigorous.

 

But why rehash old stories now? Six years on, despite criticism by

NGOs, concerned scientists and media reports on inadequate monitoring,

India's regulatory practice appears dismayingly to have offered a repeat

performance of its 2000 conduct.

 

" The story is almost a repetition of the field trials [earlier ones]…

The same kind of secrecy, the same kind of lax monitoring…. and the same

kind of violations " says a field survey report compiled by a

cross-country group of 20 people's organizations and NGOs that clubbed

together

to form the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC).

 

Concerns over biosafety issues have even come from a pro-transgenic

votary, Dr M S Swaminathan, well-known past advocate of the fertilizers,

pesticides and hybrid crops of the 1970s that did, despite its failures

today, make India self-sufficient in food. Swaminathan now looks at

transgenic crops for higher nutritional yield from less land areas, less

usage of water and chemicals, and causing less environmental stress.

 

" It is essential that an autonomous biotechnology regulatory authority,

with a high degree of political, public, professional and media

credibility be set up urgently, " Swaminathan said in 2005, in reply to my

query on the poor regulating mechanism in force in the country.

 

Swaminathan now rues what looks like a mess in the field. " Had we

adopted a pro-small farmer biotechnology strategy, we would by now

have had

Bt-cotton varieties whose seeds farmers could keep and replant, unlike

in the case of the hybrids marketed by private companies " wrote

Swaminathan in The Hindu on 24 May 2006.

 

The central government's response has been to doggedly carry on, siding

with the corporate seed industry that the protests are from

self-serving NGOs with vested interests. The single biggest factor in the

government-industry combine's favour is the ever-increasing acreage of Bt

cotton, which it claims points to farmer-acceptance. But given the mixed

results of Bt cotton so far, the increase could well be due to farmers

wanting to experiment in the hope of bigger yields and better profits

that

Bt cotton has been hyped for.

 

Furthermore, the government's inability to control the untrammelled

increase of fake, spurious Bt cotton seeds is worrying. Such seeds, known

to have produced dismal results in 2004-05 season are common in Punjab,

Haryana, Rajasthan. Farmers in Karnataka this year say they have learnt

from the disaster that others suffered earlier from such seeds and now

buy only from authorized sources.

 

The biotechnology magazine Biospectrum said in April this year that the

Union Agriculture Ministry has advised state governments to set up

check-squads and strictly enforce the Seeds Control Order 1983. The

article

also said that officials plead helplessness because loose seeds do not

warrant any regulatory action. And yet, the Environment Protection Act

1986 already has clear guidelines barring the sale of genetically

modified micro-organisms without mandatory approval of the GEAC, with

penalty provisions. Section 15 of the EPA imposes imprisonment

extending to

five years for contravention or with a fine extending to Rs.100,000, or

both. If contravention or failure continues an additional fine could,

which may extend to Rs.5000 per day of failure.

 

Also, the new Seed Bill, currently in Parliament for debate, proposes

to address this situation by stipulating that farmers can save their own

seeds if they wish, but cannot sell them without government

certification and branding.

 

The latest government move to keep up with the rapidly changing

agricultural scenario in India is the Food Standards & Safety Bill 2005,

slated in Parliament for passing. The Bill proposes to create a separate

Food Safety and Standards Authority for regulation of GM foods, while the

MOEF will continue with regulation of GM crops.

 

Still, the GEAC's regulation continues to remain suspect, given the

ground realities on the fields. Even as farmers in Karnataka are

increasingly turning to Bt cotton in 2006, there is no separate

streamlined

procedure for cultivation, transportation and sale of cotton, leading to

contamination worries. It is the process from cultivation to to sale that

gives rise to contamination risks. The procedure of growing, harvesting

(especially), baling and transporting leaves wide scope for Bt and non

Bt to mix.

 

Contamination is currently a worldwide problem. With the exception of

the EU which has strict procedures for separation of GM and non GM,

similar situations exist elsewhere. What's more, Indian farm sizes are so

small and the entire system of cultivation, transportation and sale so

decentralised that the risk here is higher. A strict system of

separation from inception right down to the market yard is an expensive

proposition that no country, the only exception being the EU, follows.

 

Even if a separation mechanism is chalked out in the near future, its

implementation remains as suspect as GEAC's efficacy in regulatory

monitoring. Contamination, therefore, is bound to happen. The question

is,

what do we do?

 

Keya Acharya

26 Jun 2006

 

Keya Acharya is a Bangalore based development and investigative

journalist. This article is second in a series of three investigative

reports.

 

Reference: Creating awareness to curb sale of fake Bt seeds, Narayan

Kulkarni, Biospectrum, April 11, 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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