Item 4 includes excerpts from the latest poison pen posting to Prakash's AgBioView. Such inaccurate hate mails - this one attacking Vandana Shiva was headed 'Liar! Liar!' - are regularly posted to this list on an anonymous basis under what appear to be aliases from hotmail and yahoo addresses. This particular mail concludes, "Shame on Ms. Shiva and shame on those who help spread her liesÖ" One might more reasonably conclude, "Shame on the poison pen posters and shame on those like Prakash who help spread their lies..."

1. Bt Cotton: Don't Politicise an Issue of Public Safety - Indian NGOs' statement
2. India: Retrieve GM cotton from market, Gujarat told
3. Quotes of the week
4. More poison postings on AgBioView
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1. (BIO)SAFETY FIRST: Bt Cotton: Don't Politicise an Issue of Public Safety
PRESS RELEASE
November 6, 2001
 
We would like to commend the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Central Government,  for its decision to order the destruction of the Bt Cotton found to be illegally growing in Gujarat, and at the same time would like to urge that the issue not be made into a political one about Centre vs.State or one party vs. another.

Whether Bt cotton, or other genetically engineered (GE) crops, should be  grown in India, is a serious question with ecological, social, and economic dimensions. Before going in for any such technology, we must be sure of at least the following:

1. That the GE crops will not cause, in the short and long run, damage to biological diversity, soils, and water;

2. That GE crops and food products, once they enter the bodies of human beings and other animals, will not cause negative health impacts;

3. That GE crops will not drive the small and marginal farmers of India to further debilitating dependence on the market and on governments, and rob them of any chance of having control over their farming systems.

It is a simple fact that GE crops have not yet been shown to stand up to  the above tests, and that worldwide, there is increasing evidence that in fact they may be causing long-term damage. We are playing with fire if we allow such technologies and products, without knowing how to deal with the consequences. In that sense, the GEAC decision is both scientifically sound and legally correct.We would also like to demand that:

1. The entire system by which seed certification and monitoring is done in India, should be overhauled, given the obvious failure of the system to detect this illegally sold transgenic seed.

2. No GE crops or food products be allowed to enter India without independent risk assessment through studies over several years, on human, animal, soil, and water health impacts.

3. Much greater transparency, and public participation (of farmers, scientists and NGOs), should be mandatory in the system of testing, screening, certification, and monitoring. More non-official members should be included in the relevant Committees that screen applications for releases of GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

4. For a start, the test results so far obtained for Bt cotton should be  made publicly available for peer review.

5. Assessments should also be done on the social, economic and political  dimensions of GE crops, in particular the impacts on the rights and social structures of small and marginal farmers, especially women.

6. Much greater stress (including R&D) should be put into organic cultivation methods, which totally avoid pesticides and chemical fertilisers. The indigenous systems of mixed and rotational cropping with polyculture having a proven track record of minimising pest and disease attack without any use of pesticides must be enhanced by the Government of India by a system of rewards and subsidies to farmers. There are, for instance, hundreds of farmers in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh who are getting high yields of cotton through organic cultivation, yet the government has ignored them and is unnecessarily tending towards hi-tech  and high-cost "solutions" like genetic engineering. Bt crops are found in some cases to have necessitated increased pesticide use, contrary to the  biotech claim.

7. In Andhra Pradesh early this year, a farmers' jury composed of small farmers, women and dalits categorically rejected GM crops saying that it  opposes GM crops including Vitamin A Rice and Bt Cotton. Such normally unheard voices must be carefully taken into consideration in policy decisions.

8. Renewed stress on public control over agricultural R&D, rescuing it from increasing domination and monopoly by vested trade and corporate interests.

9. The Government of India ratify the Cartagena Protocol of Biosafety to  which it is a signatory and which explicitly mandates a precautionary approach, and having done so, review and update domestic law on biosafety.

10. Till a comprehensive review of biosafety legislation is effected criminal/corporate liability of the seed company for the current situation be ascertained under the existing laws. Any further impact of this current situation should be resolved by adopting the polluter-pays-principle. And that the  Government use the opportunity to evolve clear guidelines for liability and compensation. The GE crops be destroyed and that farmers be compensated.

The modalities and the process of operationalising this compensation be a public/transparent process.

We urge the Government of Gujarat, and relevant farmers' movements, not to complicate this issue by invoking false honour and to instead pay heed to the rational voice that demands abundant precaution while dealing with such inherently dangerous technologies.

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Ashish Kothari / Kanchi Kohli / Shalini Bhutani Kalpavriksh - Environmental Action Group J 20 Jungpura Extension, New Delhi 110014 Aptmt. 5 Shree Datta Krupa, 908 Deccan Gymkhana, Pune 411004

PV Satheesh
Deccan Development Society, A-6 Meera Apartment, Basheer Bagh, Hyderabad

Debal Deb
Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, Barrackpore 743 187, West Bengal

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2. India: Retrieve GM cotton from market, Gujarat told
THE HINDU November 2, 2001

NEW DELHI, NOV. 1. The Centre has directed the Gujarat Government to "retrieve to the extent possible" the genetically-modified (GM) cotton that has reportedly entered the market. It has also asked the State Government to notify that the material is "not tested for safety."

 The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), under the Ministry of Environment & Forests - which is authorised to approve the release and commercialisation of GM crops - took these decisions at a meeting here. It asked the Gujarat Government to "destroy the seeds and store away the lint."

 It has further directed that the destruction of the crop residue be ensured by uprooting, burning and sanitising the fields. The Andhra Pradesh Government has also been asked to immediately stop the seed production and multiplication programme of the Bt seeds. The meeting was convened in the wake of the Gujarat Government's information on the plucking of cotton bolls and their possible entry in the market. Last month, the GEAC had asked the Government to destroy all standing crop and the cotton seeds harvested by the farmers. Meanwhile, the Europe-based environmental organisation, Greenpeace, has criticised the Centre for its inability to regulate control systems and described the release of GM crops in the environment as "ludicrous." In a release today, it flayed the Centre for absolving the Agriculture Ministry of any liability. The GEAC has blamed the Navbharat Seeds - the private company accused of marketing the transgenic Bt cotton seeds - without approval. According to an official spokesman, the cotton has been grown in 11,000 acres and tests have shown that they are genetically-engineered, making them resistant to certain insects. The Navbharat has been charged with selling "illegal" cotton seeds to farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab for largescale field trials in Indian conditions. However, the Greenpeace said the company had not committed any offence under the Seed Act and that the incident was being used as a tool to legitimise Bt cotton and help the gene giant, Monsanto, to become the final beneficiary.
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK:

"In fact, I've evidence to suggest that many of the cotton farmer suicides in Andhra in 1998 were partly because of the failure of Bt cotton sold clandestinely by Monsanto." - Pushp Bhargava, eminent molecular biologist

"I don't think that the biological community, particularly in academia, is yet sensitized enough to thinking about the implications." - scientific adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

"Public health professionals need to be aware that the 'sound science' movement is not an indigenous effort from within the profession to improve the quality of scientific discourse, but reflects sophisticated public relations campaigns controlled by industry executives and lawyers whose aim is to manipulate the standards of scientific proof to serve the corporate interests of their clients." -  Doctors Elisa Ong and
Stanton A. Glantz writing in the America Journal of Public Health,
November 2001 http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/91/11/1749
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4. More poison from AgBioView

Date: 8 Nov 2001 12:24:03 -0000
From: Mary Murphy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Subject: Liar, Liar [excerpt]

Vandana Shiva's done it again.  Lying about technology and lying about Monsanto to foment more violence and unrest in India.

The research crops Ms. Shiva helped burn to the ground were indeed the same type of crops which were pirated and sold in India to farmers desperate for a better way of farming.  Why were they forced to buy these crops (used in North America, South Africa and other countries) from the black market?  Because Ms. Shivaís terrorism campaign, entitled 'cremate Monsanto' -- during which she helped illegally destroy government sponsored research and field trials -- delayed the Indian government's ability to finish testing which was necessary for them to approve this technology.

Each year thousands of Indian farmers' crops fail due to pests, and hundreds of farmers commit suicide each year as a result.  Many of these farmers do so by drinking chemical insecticides that failed to protect their crops.  The crops Ms. Shiva protests and helps burn are designed to resist pests without the use of chemical insecticides.

Desperate farmers are trying to improve the way they grow crops and support their families, and only desire the benefits of technology which is safely and successfully used on million of acres of cotton in other countries. But they are turning to pirates and the black market to obtain this technology, thanks to Ms. Shiva's campaigns.

Like her support for the 'cremate Monsanto' campaign, Ms. Shiva likes to demonize a large company to stir up violence and unrest among poor Indian farmers.  As with her 'cremate Monsanto' campaign, again Monsanto is not the culprit and indeed has been the company acting responsibly both following Indian law while striving to help Indian farmers.

Shame on Ms. Shiva and shame on those who help spread her lies.