Supreme Court’s expert panel of scientists for ban on herbicide tolerant crops for India
Illustration: Divya
A committee of technical experts comprising scientists from top
public research laboratories and academic institutions set up by the
Supreme Court last year has changed the 10-year moratorium on field
trials of Bt transgenics that it recommended in October 2012 to what
appears to be an indefinite moratorium on food crops in its final
report.
Based on “the examination/study of the safety dossiers, it is
apparent that there are major gaps in the regulatory system. These need
to be addressed before issues related to tests can be meaningfully
considered. Till such time it would not be advisable to conduct more
field trials,” the experts say in their final report without specifying
any time frame.
In other significant recommendations, the panel finds
herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops “completely unsuitable” in the Indian
context and recommends that field trials and release of HT crops should
not be allowed in India.
Noting that a single committee such as GEAC or RCGM—these are the
main regulatory agencies for biotech crops—doing all the evaluation is
not sufficient, the expert panel has called for the setting up of a
secretariat comprising dedicated scientists with area expertise as well
as expertise in biosafety. “This will require consultation with experts
having experience at the international level in biosafety testing and
evaluation of GM safety dossiers in reputed regulatory bodies,” the
expert panel said, while suggesting that this should be done in
collaboration with the Norwegian government.
Its reason for singling out Norway is that the Norwegian system has
“an established commitment” and is one of the few attuned to considering
socio-economic issues that would be important in the Indian context.
The report said the new regulatory body should have area-wise
subcommittees/expert groups in the following fields: health (human and
animal); environment and ecology; agro-economics and socio-economics;
molecular biology; soil science and microbiology; plant biology and
regulatory toxicology among other specializations.
The report signed by its original five members was not endorsed by
Rajendra Singh Paroda. A former director-general of the Indian Council
of Agricultural Research (ICAR), he was nominated by the National
Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) to fill the gap left by V L
Chopra who did not serve on the Technical Expert Committee (TEC), as it
is called, for unspecified reasons. Paroda, according to the letter sent
by TEC to the Supreme Court on June 30, did not attend the final
meeting of the committee in Chennai. Nor has he appended a dissent
note.
The five TEC members are eminent scientists in their respective areas
of specialisation: Imran Siddiqui, plant development biology scientist
& group leader at the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular &
Molecular Biology; P S Ramakrishnan, emeritus professor of environmental
sciences and biodiversity from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University; P S
Chauhan, genetics toxicology and food safety expert; P C Kesavan,
former BARC scientist noted for his work on genetics toxicology and
radiation biology who is currently distinguished fellow; M S Swaminathan
Research Foundation, Chennai, and B Sivakumar, former director of
National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad.
Since the single largest number of applications for field trials to
GEAC is for Bt transgenics, including in food crops such as rice, the
scientists are of the view that the safety of Bt transgenics with regard
to chronic toxicity needs to be established before it can be considered
safe for human consumption. In this regard it pointed out the largest
deployment of transgenics worldwide is in soybean, corn, cotton, and
canola, all of which are used primarily for oil or feed after
processing.
“Nowhere are Bt-transgenics being widely consumed in large amounts
for any major food crop that is directly used for human consumption.”
The TEC could not find any compelling reason for India to be the first
to do so. TEC has, therefore, reiterated its interim recommendations
see that there should be a moratorium on field trials for Bt in food
until there is more definitive information from sufficient number of
studies as to the long-term safety of Bt in food crops.
GEAC had approved the commercial release of Mahyco’s Bt brinjal in 2009
but then environment minister Jairam Ramesh had put a moratorium on its
release in the wake of widespread public protests against the first
transgenic food crop in the country.
If TEC’s recommendations are accepted, crops which originate in
India, such as brinjal, cannot be genetically modified. “To date, no GMO
that is intended primarily and directly for food production has been
commercially released into its centre of origin,” says the panel. It
notes that the US has restrictions on the growth of Bt-cotton in Hawaii
where a weed related to cotton is found. For good measure it emphasizes
that cotton is not even a food crop.
Crops in their centres of origin and diversity often have “a deep
cultural significance that can easily get lost when utilitatarian issues
dominate the discourse”, says the 94-page report. Ceremonial and
medicinal varieties can also be put at risk from GM crops by reduction
of diversity and genetic purity, and to justify their release, “there
needs to be extraordinarily compelling reasons and only when other
choices are not available. GM crops that offer incremental advantages or
solutions to specific and limited problems are not sufficient reasons
to justify such release.”
In the present circumstances, there is no such compulsion, according
to the scientists, who were categorical that release of GM crops for
which India is a centre of origin or diversity should not be allowed.
