1.Pakistan: Scientists oppose deal with Monsanto
2.India: Now Bt debate over resistant pests
---
---
1.Scientists oppose deal with Monsanto
INTERNEWS, 22 March 2010
http://bit.ly/aGVhGg

KARACHI: Pakistan's top scientists have expressed concerns regarding government's plans to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with giant American multinational Monsanto for the introduction of "insect-resistant" Bt-cotton, saying that it could harm the interest of growers.

"There is a need to get sound, critical and scientific input from experts in the country before signing such a deal," Dr Anwer Naseem, chairman National Commission on Biotechnology, said yesterday.

"I have no idea whom the government has consulted."

The government plans to sign a deal with Monsanto next month aimed at introducing Bt-Cotton and other advanced seed technologies in Pakistan.

Naseem, who has been the chairman of Biotechnology Commission for the last 28 years, said that the deal raises many questions, including the levels of resistance in these cotton varieties.

“This has been reported from India as well one needs to look at agreements reached and the way in which the issue has been examined by our experts.”

Dr Abid Azhar, deputy director general of AQ Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, University of Karachi, also expressed concerns about the Monsanto deal.

“It has to be ensured that the interests of growers and farmers are not compromised in any deal that is to be agreed upon between the government and the multinational companies.”

He said that there have instances where growers have been forced to purchase seeds from multinationals for every crop after the introduction of such alien verities.

"In this way, the multinationals have attempted to monopolise the seed business," Azhar said.

A senior US scientist, Dr Michael Hansen, told a Pakistani newspaper in November 2009 that genetically modified crops are not the panacea for food security.

Rather, the answer to food security lies with small-scale, ecologically rational, sustainable agriculture that focuses on local food systems, he had said.
---
---
2.Now Bt debate over resistant pests
NDTV, March 20 2010
http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/now-bt-debate-over-resistant-pests-18130.php

Hyderabad - Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's cautious stance in imposing a moratorium on genetically modified Bt brinjal has been vindicated, if only indirectly, ironically, by none other than seed giant Monsanto admitting that pests have developed resistance to the first GM crop it introduced in India.

Multinational giant Monsanto has admitted for the first time anywhere in the world that a pest, pink bollworm, has developed resistance to its genetically modified Bt cotton variety in Gujarat. Activists warn that this could happen in Bt brinjal and the 33 other GM crops in the pipeline.

G.Ramanjaneyulu, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture: "The question of the need for Bt brinjal is questioned. The brinjal fruit-shoot borer is a monophagus pest, means it feeds only on brinjal. So resistance will develop much faster like in the pink bollworm."

The company blames farmers for not following norms, of growing non-Bt cotton variety along with Bt cotton. So, they say, resistance has developed. Monsanto has advised a shift to generation two of Bt cotton, Bollgard II, that will incidentally benefit the company an additional 100 rupees on each seed packet.

B.Sesikeran, GEAC expert committee member: "Whatever has happened with cotton can happen with any other crop as well. Whatever technology, it will have its own limited life-period during which time, resistance is likely to develop. Newer technology has to come to overcome this."

An internal note of the Union government says the admission of failure may be a marketing ploy to push Bt 2 cotton seeds and stump competition as its only now that public sector Bt cotton has entered the market.

New technology can sometimes be a very costly learning experience, like it happened in the case of pesticides. That is why those against GM crops ask why we need to embrace a technology whose implications we do not fully comprehend as yet.