[prakruti] GE crops - safety & higher yields a myth - Aruna Rodrigues.

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GE crops - safety & higher

yields a myth - Aruna Rodrigues.

Posted by: " Jagannath Chatterjee "

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Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:44 pm (PDT)

DO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS GIVE HIGHER YIELDS?

THE CREATION OF A MYTH

BY ARUNA RODRIGUES

On the 13th February 2008, during the hearing of the PIL on GM crops, the

Chief Justice of India stated that Genetically Modified crops give higher

yields. The Prime Minister and his cabinet believe it, as is evident from

the Central Government's policy to promote GM crops in India. This is an

astonishing notion, with no factual basis. It would therefore be well to

bell this particular cat and several others, by making a start with

separating FACT from FICTION with regard to Genetic Engineering (GE) and

its products GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). The first casualty is

the myth about their improved YIELDS against conventional agriculture.

Currently, worldwide, 99.9% of GM crops sown commercially comprise two

kinds: First, Bt crops like Bt cotton grown in India, engineered to kill

a specific pest, the 'bollworm' (not other pests), thereby protecting the

crop; and second, Herbicide Tolerant (HT) GM crops engineered to

withstand herbicide spraying

against weeds, where the engineered crop will live, but vegetation,

beneficial insects and other organisms around it, will die,

indiscriminately. This 99.9% is mainly animal feed, comprising cotton,

corn, and soy along with canola, (mustard oil seed). They provide sheer

volumes and lucre for Monsanto and the industry. None of these GM crops

are engineered for higher yields. They are straightforwardly,

'pesticidal' (Bt) or herbicide tolerant (to kill weeds). This is the

science and the fact. On the other hand, higher yields are conferred by

traits in the parental lines that make up the GM crop; these parental

lines are the result of farmer inputs over 10,000 years of agriculture.

The Intellectual property is rightfully theirs. It must be remembered

that billions of $s have been spent by the GE companies experimenting on

'traits', unsuccessfully. This represents a huge investment of resources

that could be better utilised elsewhere because dozens of

traits have been successfully launched using conventional and high-tech

conventional breeding techniques. Genetic engineering has conspicuously

failed to match these successes.

Myth No.2: Less pesticide, herbicide use, better economics with GM

crops

It is not within the scope of this article to analyse the Industry claims

of the success of Bt cotton in India on the basis of lower pest attacks

of the bollworm and therefore higher output.. What can be said straight

off is that scientists' warnings of 'resistance' (a response of nature)

to both Bt and Ht crops, with super bugs, super weeds and also insect

shifts filling an ecological gap, are very much in existence globally,

and are growing with each passing year. Quite contrary to what GM

companies are saying therefore, worldwide, herbicide and insecticide use

have not gone down with the adoption of GM crops. The experience of the

US, Canada & Argentina are amply documented and are clear pointers to

the dangers for India if we go down this path. US government data shows a

15 fold increase in herbicide use by 2005, (over a 10 year period), with

the adoption of GM herbicide crops in the US. First quarter sales of

Monsanto's herbicide RoundupReady are up

by just under 50%. This is a good business to be in: you sell a HT GM

crop; but spraying goes up because farmers don't have to be too careful.

The crop won't die. Remember it is resistant; after a few years when

resistance sets in with super weeds, then the progression is to fiercer

spraying and eventually moving on to the next, more lethal class of

herbicides. So farmers get trapped on an herbicide treadmill.

 

GM crops are a hard-nosed business for biotech corporations, based on

patents and profits, which farmers must pay for. Without patents, this

business would die. This is the litmus test of 'who really benefits from

GM crops'. In the killing fields of Vidharbha for example, about 70% of

farmer suicides represent Bt cotton farmers, reeling under both crop

failures and the unbearable burden of higher input costs, a fact attested

by the Tata Institute for Social Sciences and the Mumbai High Court. The

deeper goal is however insidious, and much more serious: nothing less

that the control over third world agriculture and the world's food supply

by a handful of private Transnational Agri-business Corporations. Why our

Government should allow this, or fall for it, is the mystery.

Last month, Transnational GE companies staged a walk out of the IAASTD

(International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for

Development), refusing to participate, because the report substantially

downplays the contribution of genetic engineering to agriculture and

promotes alternatives. The IAASTD is the agricultural equivalent of the

'Climate Change' IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change), formed to

provide a global assessment of how agricultural technology can help

developing countries.

Myth No. 3: GM Crops are safe

GM crops are not safe; there is growing proof of their hazardous impacts

on human and animal health and on the environment with each passing year.

You simply cannot feed people toxic food. The accepted science with

regard to genetic engineering is expressed clearly by David Schubert,

Professor, Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the prestigious Salk

Institute, in his affidavit for the Supreme Court:

" THE GM PROCESS ITSELF IS HIGHLY MUTAGENIC AND CAN CAUSE PLANTS TO

MAKE CHEMICALS THAT THEY NORMALLY DO NOT MAKE with completely

unpredictable consequences -- Many of these are known to be HIGHLY TOXIC,

CAUSE CANCER, AND CAUSE DISEASES LIKE PARKINSON'S. THE CLAIMS MADE ABOUT

THE PRECISION, SPECIFICITY AND SAFETY OF PLANT GENETIC ENGINEERING HAVE

NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS. -----IT IS EXTREMELY UNWISE TO ALLOW THE

INTRODUCTION OF GM CROPS INTO INDIA WHERE THERE IS GREAT BIOLOGICAL

DIVERSITY AND NEED FOR STABLE FOOD PRODUCTION. "

This is why genetic contamination is an outstanding issue. Contamination

is certain because it is a biological fact and IRREVERSIBLE. GMOs will

change the molecular structure of our food in perpetuity. The largest

impacts will be felt on the biodiversity, threatening those very traits

that nature supplies, and which may hold the answers for our future food

security and global survival: traits for drought and disease resistance;

high-yielding traits that GE corporations rely on to engineer their

genetic manipulations. This is the central problem.

Myth No 4: GM crops have been tested as safe for human

consumption

At a time when other countries are getting tougher about GM crops, India

is relaxing norms; pushing ahead with reckless haste. India generally

follows the US regulation on GM and borrows wholesale from it. It will

come as a surprise to the reading public that the US FDA does not approve

any GM crop as safe for human consumption. Members of the European

Parliament have called for a Community response to the threat posed by

the introduction of " invasive alien species and alien

genotype; " " --- to ban the introduction of genetically modified

organisms and evaluate the potential threat to biodiversity posed by

their introduction.†Yet India is trail-blazing with this

hazard is also a universal first. China has backed off from

commercialising GM rice. We have not.

Incomprehensibly, Bio-safety decisions by the Indian Government are based

on secretive Industry studies by the very crop developer that will

benefit from its introduction. The Government also astoundingly accepts

Industry demands of confidentiality or CBI (Confidential Business

Information), overriding PUBLIC SAFETY. This is of course unconscionable;

it flouts every ethical norm and yardstick of objectivity. It works only

to sanction fraud. Where does this leave India as a supposedly

functioning democracy and the health and future quality of life of its

people? On the other hand, a German court, in a decision involving a Bt

corn, which had passed the approval process in the EU 10 years ago,

forced Monsanto to publish its dossier on a 90-day rat feeding study.

When leading independent scientists subjected the study to hard scrutiny,

Monsanto's own data showed the GM corn variety to be toxic. This

February, the new French President, Sarkozy banned another

variety of Bt corn (also for animal feed), the ONLY GM CROP grown on

French soil. The provisional High Authority on GMOs found " a certain

number of new negative scientific facts which notably impact fauna and

flora " . The UK does not grow any GM crops; Poland and Scotland have

moratoriums. Ireland, Wales, and Cyprus are moving toward declaring

themselves GM-free. In the US, four district courts have ruled that the

USDA has acted illegally, for not conducting proper environmental impact

assessments, even calling the " USDA'S REGULATORY HEEDLESSNESS

ARBITRARY AND CAPRICIOUS " and " an unequivocal violation of a

clear congressional mandate. " As a result of this landmark judgement

commercial sales of GM alfalfa are banned nationwide.

Monsanto and our Government

It is very relevant to cite Monsanto's 100 year-old track record of how

it serves society:

*This is the company that said Agent Orange and PCBs were safe (of Bhopal

infamy).

*This is the agri-business giant that now makes GMOs. It owns Terminator

technology in partnership with the US government, fudges, bribes and

falsifies data to show its GMOs are safe.

*It bribed 140 Indonesian officials to get Bt cotton approved without an

environment impact assessment and tried to bribe Canadian government

officials to get its GM Bovine Growth Hormone approved without further

study.

*The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected four key Monsanto patents

related to GM crops that the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) challenged

because the agricultural giant is using them to harass, intimidate, sue -

and in some cases bankrupt - American farmers.

*The Alabama Court Judgement in February 2002 best describes the sort of

business that Monsanto is in. Court documents revealed that the company

withheld evidence about the safety of their PCBs because " ---We

can't afford to lose one dollar of business--- " . Residents of the

town were being poisoned by their factory. Monsanto was found guilty on

six counts including OUTRAGE which according to Alabama law is conduct

" so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond

all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and

utterly intolerable in civilized society. "

We must be judged by the company we keep. The RTI data provided to

GreenPeace proves just how cosy the relationship between the Regulators

(the GEAC & RCGM) and the GM Biotech industry is; the Regulator's

approvals mortgage India's farming livelihoods and systems, her biosafety

and the health of her citizens. The Indian Government has gone one

further with the enactment of an agreement with the USA, called the KIA,

(Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture) which will give Monsanto access to

India's genetic resources. What I and three co-petitioners asked of the

Supreme Court, in view of the sheer weight of the evidence against GM

crops, and the way they are approved in India, was a ban on the release

of GMOs in line with the Precautionary Principle, especially in our food

crops, which must not be contaminated: until we have in place a

transparent system functioning under a tough and rigorous biosafety

protocol, which will ensure openness to scrutiny by the

international scientific fraternity and civil society. This is not just

rational and scientific; it is a firm basis in law that is appropriate

and reasonable.

 

Our Food and Biodiversity will be Contaminated Irreversibly without Hope

of Restoration

The gravest threat is to global ecological damage from the twin threats

that face our world: First, of 'climate change' and with it, the unique

risks of genetic engineering and its products GMOs. 'Climate Change'

after years of cover-up and disinformation is now headlined every day. In

theory at least, there can be a ROLLBACK if we act decisively. ON THE

OTHER HAND, THE GREATEST DANGER POSED BY GE IS THAT GLOBALLY, WE ARE

BEING SUBJECTED TO THE SAME SPIN AS CLIMATE CHANGE WAS FOR YEARS. This

time however, every action that releases untested GMOs, takes us to the

brink. Today, in India, we stand 'on the brink' like no other nation. The

crisis we face requires a profound reassessment of just who we are as a

people and what we stand for. Grappling with the honest issues of the

debate and making decisions based on such an assessment is one thing.

Committing our country to the disastrous and irreversible consequences of

this technology based on scientific

facts being covered-up and the fiction being promoted as the truth is

completely unacceptable. In my book, given the magnitude of the sell-out

of India's national interest, this is treasonable.

Aruna Rodrigues is the main Petitioner to the SC in a PIL filed in 2005.

This article is based on the evidence submitted in Court, which includes

statements of leading world scientists prepared for the Court.

Think Simply. Think Wisely.

Curb Semantics. Speak the Truth.

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