1.Government sabotaging Public Debate on Genetically Modified crops
2.Critique of the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill – extract
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1. Government sabotaging Public Debate on Genetically Modified crops by the introduction of BRAI bill
Coalition for a GM-Free India, 24 August 2011

*"No Vision for Sustainable Development, No Transparency, No Public Consultation, No Role for State Governments, No Biosafety Guarantees, No Needs Analysis, No Impact Assessment and No effective Liability and Redressal mechanisms in the BRAI Bill," say Civil Society groups, farmers' unions and legal experts*

New Delhi: Civil Society organisations, legal experts and farmer unions came together today to voice their opposition to the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill 2011 which they pointed out is a blatant and unscrupulous attempt by the Central Government to bulldoze the ongoing vibrant public debate in India and the serious concerns regarding human health, environmental safety and seed/food sovereignty issues surrounding the technology of Genetically Modified (GM) crops. The groups released a critique of the BRAI Bill and pointed out that this Bill is an egregious piece of legislation, that has scant regard for the norms of democracy – transparency, need for public consultation, recognition of the constitutional authority of the states over matters of health and agriculture – and the total absence of any substantial measures within the bill to address any aspects related biosafety. They pointed out that the introduction of the Bill by Authority Ministry of Science & Technology, whose mandate is to promote the development of GM crops, reeks of conflict of interest and is a sure recipe for corruption and an inherent bias in decision-making. 

"In the last two years, since the opening up of the public debate on GM crops in India, and the independent scientific scrutiny of data and studies related to Bt Brinjal, it has been revealed many times over that GM crops could expose public health and environment to hitherto unknown dangers. Findings from recent studies, like the one from Canada that has found Bt toxins in the placenta of women and in the blood should ring alarm bells about this technology. Yet the Ministry of Science and Technology, instead of calling for a moratorium on this technology, till its safety is fully established, is going ahead and opening up the doors to speed up the spread of this technology in the country with this proposed unconstitutional, draconian bill that will establish a single window clearance mechanism for GM crops” said Sridhar R, Convener, Coalition for a GM Free India. “The Bill will sabotage the healthy debate that is happening in India on GM crops, and will be a serious hindrance to
all other sustainable options that can ensure safe and healthy ways of ensuring food security" he added. 

In the recent past, it has been rightly accepted by the Environment Ministry and institutionalized by the GEAC that in India's federal structure, the states have a right to determine whether they want to allow open air field trials or not. Many States Governments have already rejected permissions for open air field trials. The proposed bill should have built on the progress made through trial and error and should have improved on the existing regulatory regime; it is instead a retrograde piece of legislation which is based on the reductionist principle of treating the issue of GMOs as a mere technological one, to be decided upon by a small group of technical experts.

"During the short history of GM crops in the country since efforts began to introduce Bt cotton, the only commercially approved GM crop in our country, there has been strong resistance from citizens in the country, reflected in the public debate on Bt brinjal last year. If the government is still going ahead full steam on promotion of transgenics, disregarding such resistance, then there is no doubt about whose side it is on. The BRAI Bill, by its lax procedures and clearing house approach, will surely jeopardize this country's seed sovereignty and endanger the productive resources of farmers, on which their very livelihoods depend. As can be seen with a decade of Bt cotton, cost of cultivation is increasing, with seed cost increasing exorbitantly; in regions like Vidarbha, farm suicides have actually increased after the entry of Bt cotton even though it was promoted as a silver bullet to the farmers of cotton farmers there", said Yudhvir Singh, Leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union and National Coordinator of the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers' Movements.

"The Biosafety protection regime in the country should naturally follow the Cartagena Protocol under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which lays down progressive principles like precautionary approach, democratic decision-making with public consultations etc. Till date the Environmental Protection Act (EPA1986, Rules 1989) was the legal framework and the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) the apex regulatory body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Now the proposed BRAI Bill is an unconstitutional attempt by the government to take this away from the MOEF with the primary mandate of environment protection and vest it into the Science and Technology Ministry whose focus is promotion of biotechnology. This is not just an issue of conflict of interest but a denial of the correct mandate for a regulator namely biosafety, public health and environmental protection," said Colin Gonsalves, Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India. 

"One of the major concerns is the overarching powers that the regulatory authority is granted on withholding essential information like biosafety studies of GM crops. The clause 28 of the proposed BRAI bill asserts that such information can be considered as commercial confidential information and Authority can even override the Right to Information Act, 2005, on public requests for such data. This is completely unacceptable and regressive. If everything is safe with GM crops, why should the Bill even have clauses around withholding information or officials having to take an oath of secrecy? It is apparent from the world over that wherever informed debates have been allowed on the matter of transgenics, citizens have strongly rejected the technology. This is what the government is afraid of and this Bill is an attempt to muzzle such informed debates.Nothing can be more undemocratic than this move by the govt." said Sri Vijay Pratap, Convenor, South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy (SADED).

Speakers in the press conference demanded that the Government desist from introducing this seriously flawed, narrow, technocratic BRAI Bill, and formulate a holistic and effective Biosafety Protection legislation under the aegis Ministry of Environment and Forests or Ministry of Health & Family Welfare or both, with an independent and credible inter-ministerial regulatory framework. It should be as articulated by the 2004 Task Force Report on Agricultural Biotechnology where the bottom line for the regulatory policy would be “the safety of the environment, the well being of farming families, the ecological and economic sustainability of farming systems, the health and nutrition security of consumers, safeguarding of home and external trade and the biosecurity of the nation”.  They also demanded that neither the introduction of GM crops nor a regulatory bill to bulldoze its introduction be brought in until the debate on GM crops is resolved and the safety is fully established, under scientific and public scrutiny.

For more information: 

Sridhar Radhakrishnan  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; 09995358205

Kavitha Kuruganti - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; 09393001550

Nishank - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; 0915867930
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2.Critique of the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill 2011 by the Coalition for a GM-Free India

August 2011 [extract only]

Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, 2011 (BRAI): "Wrong Bill by the wrong people, for the wrong reasons" a critique by the Coalition for a GM-Free India

Background

Transgenics or GE/GM crops are one of the oft-used tools of modern biotechnology, deployed in our food and farming systems. Genetically Modified (GM) or Genetically Engineered (GE) crops are created unnaturally by inserting genes, taken usually from alien organisms like bacteria, viruses, animals and other unrelated plants, for obtaining certain new 'traits' or characteristics that the new genes are supposed to bring with them and express in the GE/GM crop. This kind of insertion of "genetic constructs" of a combination of bacterial and viral genes, for instance, does not happen in Nature. In Nature, the genome of any organism gets created at an evolutionary time scale and regulation of molecular level function is a highly complex, as-yet- incompletely-understood scientific arena.

For instance, Bt cotton or Bt brinjal have been created by inserting the gene from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis into cotton/brinjal to produce a new toxin inside the plant itself to kill specific pests that feed on the plant. It is claimed that this will bring down the usage of chemical pesticides that are sprayed from outside for pest control.

However, this technology is fraught with imprecision and unpredictability. Moreover, since this is a living technology (seeds have life and once released into the environment, will grow and propagate on their own), it is uncontrollable and irreversible. Insertion of new genes using the technologies used for genetic engineering results in a lot of unpredictable changes in the existing DNA of an organism and induces instability in the genome. 

Individual genes as well as the genetic engineering process are known to create a lot of adverse health and environmental impacts, as documented in scientific studies all over the world. Attached is a compilation (not exhaustive) of such scientific studies which have captured adverse and unintended impacts of GM crops. Given the fact that this is a controversial technology whose safety is not yet established conclusively, even as there is growing evidence of the lack of safety, a majority of the countries around the world have not opted to go in for this technology in their agriculture and to this day, more than 15 years after the first GM crop was introduced for commercial cultivation in the USA, nearly 75% of GM crop cultivation happens in just 3 countries (USA, Brazil and Argentina) even as an overwhelming majority of countries around the world have shunned this so-called gene revolution path for agricultural development.

In India, only one GM crop has been allowed for commercial cultivation Bt cotton, that too after it was discovered to have spread illegally on thousands of hectares in 2001. At the end of nearly a decade of Bt cotton cultivation, which was brought in on the claims of reduced insecticide usage in cotton crop in India, the value of insecticides used in cotton in the country has actually increased to levels (880.40 crores of rupees in 2010) that are more than the level in 2002 (597 crores), when Bt cotton was first approved. Suicides in regions like Vidarbha have not come down after the advent of Bt cotton but have actually increased (Maharashtra's total number of farm suicides during 1997-2002 stood at 17002, with an annual average of 2833, while it was 24402 during 2003-2008 {after Bt cotton was introduced}, with the annual average being 4067, as per NCRB data).

Last year, the nation witnessed a loud and intense debate on the first food crop that was cleared by regulators in 2009, Bt brinjal. After holding nation-wide consultations on this controversial food crop, the Minister for Environment & Forests decided to "adopt a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal, till such time independent scientific studies establish, to the satisfaction of both the public and professionals, the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and environment, including the rich genetic wealth existing in brinjal in our country".

Critique of the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill 2011 by the Coalition for a GM-Free India, August 2011 2

IT IS WORTHWHILE TO REMEMBER THAT THE FOLLOWING IMPORTANT POINTS CROPPED UP DURING THE NATIONWIDE DEBATE ON THE SUBJECT, CAPTURED IN THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA'S BT BRINJAL MORATORIUM DECISION NOTE:

*All state governments that were consulted and responded, expressed apprehension and called for extreme caution (so, state governments getting a space to take a stand and expressing their opposition is to be noted, from the Bt brinjal debate)

*Need – 'there does not seem to be any over-riding food security, production shortage or farmer distress arguments favoring the enormous priority that has been accorded to it (Bt brinjal) by private companies, other than the well-known argument on the need to reduce pesticide use. Bt technology not the only route for reducing pesticide use. NPM eliminates chemical pesticide use completely whereas Bt technology only reduces the pesticide spray, albeit substantially1.

*Safety tests critiqued – Tests have been carried out by Bt brinjal developers themselves – raises legitimate doubts that cannot be ignored on the reliability of tests – threat of contamination.

*Monsanto controlling our food chain – national sovereignty concerns

*3951 varieties of brinjal – 134 diversity-rich districts – loss of diversity argument cannot be glossed over”¦.

*Need to review Bt cotton experience; issues of pest resistance (monophagous pest)

*Questions on the integrity of the GEAC process – NBRA needed for science-based independent testing with integrity & impartiality

*Many countries not going in for GM; US has them widely available but 'there is no great compulsion for us to follow suit'

*Need to adhere to international protocols, agreements and guidelines like Cartagena Protocol, Rio Declaration, Codex guidelines”¦.

*Feedback from scientists”¦.some in favor and some against; no clear consensus within the scientific community itself

*"Limited release" suggestion not feasible, being extremely difficult to ensure "quarantine" – labeling impractical

*Precautionary principle as seen in SC judgements in the past

*Issues with the tests conducted and not conducted so far

*Public sentiment is negative

*"No over-riding urgency to introduce Bt brinjal here, the very first such GM vegetable in the world", says the moratorium decision note.

One can see from the above main points that featured in the MoEF's decision note on February 9th 2010 related to Bt brinjal, that all the above issues are very much applicable to all transgenic crops, are relevant even now and would have to be made into an integral part of a regulatory regime...