By Chandrika Mago
Economic Times (India)November 7, 2002
On the eve of a possible decision on India's second transgenic crop, critical volunteer groups sounded a warning on genetically-modified crops while the company rooting for permission to commercialise GM mustard maintained it could satisfy all queries on safety.
On Thursday, the Union environment ministry's inter-ministerial genetic engineering approval committee (GEAC) will consider ProAgro's request for commercialisation of GM mustard. This comes seven months after GEAC gave conditional approval for commercialisation of India's first transgenic crop, insect-resistant Bt cotton. Genetic pollution concerns on mustard are acknowledged to be more complex than cotton, with pollen transfer and weeds major worries. There are fears this could affect other species and attack wild relatives of the plant. NGOs maintain none of the concerns on this, or on health, have been addressed adequately.
Paresh Verma, ProAgro's director, research, begs to differ. Essentially, the company has introduced three genes, two from bacteria and one a herbicide-tolerant marker, to enhance productivity. Average increase is about 20 per cent in seeds and 25 per cent in oil. This, says Verma, is independent of the scale of farming. The marker gene would make little difference in India, he says, since the herbicide in question isn't approved for use here. "It would be of no economic consequence."
Verma's second point is that their studies have ruled out any crossover to wild species. There is, he admits, a "limited possibility" of threat to another cultivated species of mustard. But the species they are interested in, and have experimented on, grows in UP, MP, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana, 95 per cent of mustard acreage. The species which could be threatened grows in cooler climes. Only in a few districts, in Punjab for instance, are both cultivated.
Pollen flow studies, says Verma, do not indicate any trouble. Arguing the gene is safe, he maintains there is no need even for a refuge area (a border of non-GM crop around a GM crop). Gene transfer would at best be so miniscule it would have no impact.
Whether ProAgro is able to satisfy GEAC members will be known on Thursday. But volunteer groups have also attacked the country's first transgenic crop of insect-resistant Bt cotton, describing it as "a large-scale failure". Bt cotton's first harvest is now under scrutiny.
On Wednesday, Vandana Shiva's Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, said the crop has failed the test on pest-resistance and higher yields in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Monsanto's spokesperson Ranjana Smetacek rebutted this, saying it's been "very successful" and has done "significantly better" than non-Bt cotton in one lakh acres spread across six southern and central states. Conditions on refuge area, too, have been "very well complied with", she said, since they limited seed sales to farmers familiar with the trials on this.
Environment ministry officials described the results as "mixed" but maintained the overall report was not bad. In some areas, the crop just wasn't as effective against bollworm as it was made out to be, in others it was attacked at the root by other pests. In other areas, however, the position was satisfactory.
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