Conspiracy of Anti-GM Forces to Deny Benefits of Modern Biotechnology to Indian farmers

The parliamentary standing committee on agriculture chaired by Mr.  Basudeb Acharia, in its 500 and odd page report severely indicts the Genetically Modified (GM) crops technology and call for completely halting even field tests, which is a crucial part of the research and development activities.  Such a damning condemnation of one of the truly transformative technologies of our times without a sound scientific rationale, if accepted as a public policy of the country, will turn India’s agriculture backwards for decades to come.  Indian agricultural productivity is in doldrums, and with increase in population growth, there is no way India can feed its population without modern science and technology.  The report, without solid scientific evidence, seems to condemn the GM crops technology on apolitically motivated ideological basis.  The report claims to have received thousands of submissions from all stakeholders, and seems to have given short shrift to the views of the scientific community.  Almost every allegation listed in the report against the GM crops seems to have been taken straight out of the anti-GM lobby’s playbook.  The report targets the highly successful BT cotton as a disaster for Indian farmers, and blames it entirely for farmer suicides in the Vidharbha region without a shred of empirical evidence.  This is contrary to all the empirical field data published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, DC and the Center for Economic and Social Sciences (CESS), Hyderabad.  Researchers from the highly reputed institutions like the Inter Academy Report on GM crops of India, the position paper of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences of India, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Andhra University, the Gokhale Institute, Pune, Cornell University, Ithaca NY, and publications in reputed scientific journals like the Science and proceedings of National Academy of Sciences documenting with empirical evidence the phenomenal success of Bt cotton in India and its socio-economic benefits, have been given short shrift in the report.  The fact that more than 95% of cotton growing areas in the country is planted with Bt cotton by thousands of cotton farmers in the country resulting savings of 40% of total chemical insecticides in cotton cultivation have not been recognized at all.  The net result is protection of the environment, human exposure to the insecticides, and measurable socio-economic benefits.  These ground realities have ben completely overlooked and the committee has recommended that Bt cotton cultivation should be banned.

The report has also praised the moratorium on Bt brinjal and once again repeats what anti-technology lobby has been saying that India has over 2200 varieties of brinjal that would take care of all future needs of the country.  The scientific fact is there are no more than 200 authentic brinjal varieties in the country, most of which have gone out of cultivation.  More than 70% of brinjal grown in India are modern day hybrids that are genetically modified albiet using classical breeding techniques.  As much as it is valuable to have as much diversity in a crop variety, it is also equally important is the method of their cultivation by minimizing the environmental impacts and reducing the carbon footprint.  GM crops do exactly that by reducing the chemical inputs have not only developed Bt brinjal hybrids, but have also developed Bt brinjal; Varieties at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore and the University of Agricultural sciences, Dharwad.  It has taken almost 8 years for their development and safety testing, and has been reviewed by two expert bio safety committees before it was approved by GEAC.  Then Mr. Jairam Ramesh clamped an indefinite moratorium on it.  It does not look like that this moratorium will be undone anytime soon, and the future of the entire GM crops technology is up in the air in the country.  This unscientific moratorium has been applauded by the parliamentary committee report without giving a valid scientific reason.

The triumph of Bt cotton in India is unquestionable based on any number of academic, peer-reviewed studies mentioned above.  The fact more than 90% of cotton flowers are growing Bt cotton is a testimony to its popularity.  No farmer is complaining of unavailability of non-Bt cotton except for the anti-GM lobby activists.  If theres is a shortage of non-Bt cotton seeds in any market, there any number hybrid cotton seed companies that will happily step into meet the market demands.  Such a demand does not really exist\.  For the past several years, Bt cotton have been sold in the range of Rs.750 to 900 per acre determined by the state governments.  Most cotton farmers have opted for Bt cotton for obvious benefits, and therefore there may be a shortage of non-Bt seeds in certain markets.  But, the anti-GM lobby has never accepted the success of Bt cotton and has successfully convinced the willing parliamentary committee and its chairman that Bt cotton has not been a failure, but it is directly responsible for farmer suicides.  Ask for empirical evidence, they have none.

The report castigates the regulatory system in the country without properly analyzing the scientific basis on which it functions.  It recommends the Norwegian system at the behest of the anti-GM lobby Norwegian model for regulating bio-technology is an academic anti-GM lobby front, and is not even adopted by the EU countries.  It is designed to tie up products of biotechnology in regulatory testing for decades that will essentially kill technology development.  Bt brinjal decisions by the two regulatory bodies of the country were taken after two expert committee’s reports where they addressed all scientific concerns.  GM technology is not monopoly of one company as alleged by the chairman of the committee.  There is a world of difference between “monopoly” and market “dominance”.  Six biotech majors marketing the technology products around the world, and they can do so in India provided the regulatory system function on a proper scientific basis.  What is holding true market competition from developing in India is the strangulating regulatory system, and what the report is recommending is to make it even stringent that will only kill the technology development.  Bt cotton technology has been developed by three different technology providers, and a number of public sector laboratories are poised to deliver their own GM crops in the future, and Bt brinjal varieties that are under moratorium are products of such public sector labs.  Currently, there is market “domination”, of one company’s technology, and that is due to the fact that it came first to the market, and is superior to its competitors.  What the report suggests is to use the regulatory system to create an uneven playing field in which only big corporations with deep pockets big corporations with deep pockets con stay in the game, and the lesser one cannot even get a start. This will be antithetical to what the committee wants to promote public sector technology development.

The proposed Biotechnology regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) bill has been crafted after several years of public consultations, and it will be a shame to dump it due to pressure from the anti-GM lobby.  BRAI will be a one stop window to get clearances for all sorts of bio technology products, and will be an autonomous body like the nuclear regulatory authority.

GM crops technology is a scale neutral technology as it embedded in the seed and rich and poor farmers alike can use the product for benefit as demonstrated in India, The Philippines, Mali, Kenya and South Africa and many other Latin American countries.

The report blames the country’s biotechnology policy by saying that government’s neo-liberal policies are responsible for India’s agrarian crisis, and certainly expresses its angst against technologies developed by multi-national corporations, a popular whipping boy image in India.  This is a fallacious political argument not based on any empirical data.  If India’s agricultural production has increased since 1950’s it is mainly due to green revolution technologies, and we can make further progress by employing modern biotechnology.  Even though India’s public research system was mainly responsible for green revolution, for the past three decades, it is India’s private seed companies that have delivered products to the farmers consistently.  And, that is the way to successfully commercialize any technology as it happens in all successful economies.  Usually, governments are total failures to commercialize technologies, and they should not be including in them in which they have a proven track record of failures.  The glaring example in GM crops technology is the Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s (ICAR) failure to deliver on Bikaneri Narma, supposed to be an open pollinated Bt cotton variety.  India knows it well and it is embarked on public-private partnerships to deliver fruits of modern biotechnology in the future.

As if the parliamentary committee report is not enough, a Technical Expert Committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court of India consisting of only Indian scientists, in its latest interim report has inflicted a blow to GM crops technology development.  If its recommendations are accepted by the court, Indian scientists will not be allowed to conduct the crucial field testing of GM food crops for 10 years, a tactic of the anti-GM lobby to kill the technology entirely in India.  This leitmotif has been the center piece of the anti-GM lobby.  Their chief scientist is Dr. Pushpa Bhargava who has concocted some 30 odd laboratory safety tests that he would like every GM crop come to the market in our life time.  All over the world, the tactic of the anti-GM lobby has been the same. Use the regulatory system to tie up products in testing from here to eternity and effectively kill the technology.  The second recommendation of the TEC is to ban the Herbicide Tolerant(HT) GM crops on one of the most fallacious bleeding heart arguments that this technology will deprive livelihoods  of poor agricultural laborers who are mostly women and children.  The idea is simple.  Keep this poor farming community intact as their constituency to raise money from abroad for their own jet setting life style.  The idea is simple.  Keep this poor farming community intact as their constituency to raise money from abroad for their own jet setting life style.  This tactic achieves only goal of sustaining poverty as it is the meal ticket for all these activists.  First of all, this manual weed pulling laborers are women and children who are paid very low wages to keep them poor forever.  It is a back breaking work that nobody wants to do and as such there is acute shortage of farm labor all over the country.  What Indian farmers need are technologies that can save on labor and bring in efficiency.  If the TEC committee members only knew the ground realities of Indian, agriculture, they would not be making this scientifically stupid recommendation.  They have done so at the prodding of urban based NGO’s myths.  Indian agriculture loses 30-40% of it s crops due to weeds and weed management has become crucial to increase India’s moribund agricultural productivity.  The only saving grace in recent times is that Prime Minister’s science advisory panel headed by prof. VNR Rao issued a judiciously tempered advisory on GM crops technology, but it remains to be seen how far they will prevail in the end.  The members of the TEC have demonstrated the most anti-science spirit in their recommendations and deserve to be condemned for their ignorance and incompetence.  The larger scientific community must name and shame this TEC members and their report must not be allowed to stand.  If the Indian scientific community does not wake up even now, then they will have no one else to blame but themselves.

India badly needs to make scietific and technological progress in agriculture. These parliamentary and TEC reports, if adopted will set India's agricultural cloack backwards. The government should invite real scientific experts and social scientists to draw up a visionary blueprint for launching India's agriculture on a truly progressive trajectory in the 21st century and beyond by co-opting the best science and technology available. Incidentally a group of 50 leading social scientists from around the world led by Prof. N Chandrasekhara Rao of Delhi university have submitted a memorandum of the Prime Minister's office rejecting the pariamentary committee's assessment of the GM crops technology. It remains to be seen how this petition will prevail the parliamentary committee report.  

Reference:

ShanthuShantharam (2013). "Conspiracy of Anti-GM Forces to Denu Benefits of Modern Biotechnology to Indian farmers". Agriculture Today, January 2013, pp 56-58