NEWS FROM INDIA
1.Govt accused of ignoring bar on field trials of GM crops
2.Like it or not, Indians are eating GM food already
3.NGOs seek domestic biosafety law
4.After cotton, genetically modified mustard to hit Indian market
5.GM regulator openly propagandises for GM crops

NOTE: Item 4 is full of pro-GM hype, not least from CD Mayee, the former co-chair of India's apex GM regulatory body (GEAC), who actually declares, "There have been no negative effects of cultivation of Bt Cotton in a decade and there are unlikely to be any." The article fails to mention that Mayee is also on the board of directors of ISAAA – the controversial GM industry backed lobby whose board has also included leading figures from the likes of Monsanto, Syngenta and the AusBiotech Alliance – see item 5.
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1.Govt accused of ignoring bar on field trials of GM crops
JBS Umanadh, 
Deccan Herald, October 2 2012
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/282646/govt-accused-ignoring-bar-field.html

Hyderabad – While sustained public outcry and debate has led to moratorium on commercialisation of Bt Brinjal, open air field trials of different genetically modified (GM) crops are allegedly being carried out in several states across India.

GM varieties of cotton, maize, sorghum and rice are a few crops currently under field trials against the directions of the Parliamentary sub committee on Agriculture that asked the government to bar all field trials of GM crops. The Coalition for GM Free India and Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) claim that trials are being carried on GM Cotton in Punjab, NK 603 variety of Maize in Haryana, rice and sorghum in Andhra Pradesh.  

"It is a pity the Indian government is ignoring the possibility of contamination through GM crops," said Sridhar Radhakrishnan, Convener of Coalition for GM Free India. Civil society organisations point out that the unabated use of Bt-Cotton has actually contaminated the indigenous cotton resulting in its rejection in overseas markets.

"It is unfortunate that India learnt its lessons the hard way from its tryst with Bt-Cotton and it is our poor farmers who have and continue paying with their lives. It is time the world realised that techno fixes such as GM crops cannot solve agrarian distress nor provide food security," the Coalition added.

To further strengthen its point of view, the CSA in a paper titled Modern Agriculture and Erosion of Agro-biodiversity, released on the sidelines of the COP-MOP-6 here on Tuesday, pointed out that displacement of green revolution technologies with GM crops had wreaked hon the environment.
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2.Like it or not, Indians are eating GM food already
Joydeep Gupta 
Third Pole, 1 October 2012
http://www.thethirdpole.net/like-it-or-not-indians-are-eating-gm-food-already/

India does not allow genetically modified food crops, but oil from pressed GM cottonseeds is finding its way into diets. As experts from around the globe gather in Hyderabad to discuss biosafety, Joydeep Gupta reports on the debate.

Many scientists describe genetically modified (GM) crops as a panacea, many others as a Frankenstein monster. The debate is serious enough to need a global agreement, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. This will be the first topic of discussion at the United Nations biodiversity summit starting this week in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. But while the experts debate, GM foods are being consumed by us, whether we like it or not.

The clearest example is in India, host to this year's UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) summit. The Indian government has recently rejected yet another application by Mahyco the Indian associate of the global GM seed giant Monsanto to allow commercial cultivation of GM food crops. But India gave the go-ahead to the GM crop Bt cotton back in 2002, and now has the world’s largest area under this crop planting 12.1 million hectares between 2011 and 2012, producing 35.5 million bales, according to Mahyco.

Rajendra Barwale, Managing Director of Mahyco, revealed a little-noticed side effect of Bt cotton cultivation in large swathes of India. The cottonseed is pressed to produce edible oil, which is sold for human consumption. With a production of 1.31 million tonnes in 2011-2012, oil from Bt cotton formed 13.7% of all edible oils produced in India for human consumption, Barwale told the audience at a seminar held in New Delhi by The Energy and Resources Institute.

There was more. Barwale said that in the financial year 2011-2012, 4.33 million tonnes of de-oiled cake was produced from Bt cotton in India for animal feed, one-third of all the de-oiled cake produced in the country for this purpose. Animal feed makes its way into human food through milk and meat.

India has two sets of regulations for GM crops. One set was approved in 1989, under the umbrella of the Environment Protection Act of 1986. Under these rules, the environment ministry has set up a Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) to decide if a GM food crop is to be permitted. The committee had initially allowed Bt brinjal (a GM aubergine), which led to a furore, and the overturning of that decision by the then environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

A second set of regulations was made in 2006, by which the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is supposed to approve the decision to introduce any GM food. This authority is also in charge of GM labelling.

Rajesh Krishnan, head of the anti-GM crop campaign at Greenpeace India, told thethirdpole.net: “The GM function of FSSAI has not been put into practice. While GEAC continues to be the body which approves any environmental release [commercialisation and field research] of GM crops including food crops, there is much confusion with regard to who will approve import of processed food items derived from or containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Circular after circular has been released by both GEAC and FSSAI passing the buck to each other on who should be responsible, thus leaving the doors open to illegal import of GM food into Indian market. Greenpeace had exposed this at least twice in the past.”

So India is in a strange situation, where GM food crops are not allowed, GM cotton is allowed, and there is no rule on whether the by-products of this GM cotton can enter the food chain.

Countering all this criticism, proponents of GM crops point out that GM crops reduce pesticide use, because it is the job of the modified gene to fight pests. When pushing for approval of Bt brinjal, some scientists had said that India loses 33% of its brinjal crop to pests, and this had been brought down to 9% in field trials of GM brinjal.

But within three or four years, the pests mutate so that they can counter the new gene, said Douglas Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Gurian-Sherman, author of the GM crop critique Failure to Yield, was in New Delhi late September, on way to the biosafety meeting in Hyderabad.

GM proponents say their critics are making a lot of unnecessary fuss, because humans have been selectively breeding crops since the dawn of agriculture, and the GM technology is no different. To this, the critics answer that selective breeding does not introduce a laboratory-produced bacillus into a gene. Proponents say field trials have shown no adverse effect of this introduction. Critics say the trials have not gone on long enough. Most lay observers, including policymakers, seem confused by the avalanche of contradictory scientific data produced by both sides.

The Cartagena Protocol, which bureaucrats and experts will discuss in Hyderabad in the first week of October, establishes procedures for regulating the import and export of living modified organisms from one country to another. While that is undoubtedly vital, expansion of GM crops in many countries is leaving the regulators behind. The policymakers need to talk about this and lay down some guidelines, but there are strong indications they may not. That will leave the fractious debate under the control of seed companies and NGOs, with few chances of any resolution.

Joydeep Gupta is South Asia director of thethirdpole.net
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3.NGOs seek domestic biosafety law
K Rajani Kanth
Business Standard, October 3 2012
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/ngos-seek-domestic-biosafety-law/488307/

Chennai / Hyderabad – Pending ratification of the Nagoya Supplementary Protocol, non-government organisations (NGOs) are demanding that the Indian government enact a domestic legislation for liabilities and redress of living-modified organisms (LMOs).

The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on liability and redress to the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety closed for signature in March 2012 with a total of 51 signatories, including India. The Supplementary Protocol dealt with the liability and redress on damage resulting from living modified organisms (LMOs).

"Once you have signed it, you don’t need a supplementary ratification to go ahead with your domestic law. Very legitimately, as an exercise of national sovereignty, we can implement a national law which we already have,” said Shalini Bhutani of India-based international non-government organisation GRAIN.

Speaking to mediapersons at a side meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) here on Tuesday, she said India already had the National Biological Diversity Act 2002, which clearly had a provision to deal with the possible risks associated with the application of modern biotechnology.

“What a Supplementary Protocol helps is to develop a very specific regime fora, frameworks and procedures to pursue a claim made by an operator of LMOs,” she said, adding civil liability was always better than an administrative approach.

According to Sridhar Radhakrishnan, convenor of Coalition for GM (genetically-modified)-free India, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) had recommended Bt brinjal for commercial cultivation in 2009, post which the ministry of environment and forests had declared a moratorium on Bt brinjal in 2010. GEAC is an apex body constituted in the ministry of environment and forests for manufacture, use, import, export and storage of hazardous microorganisms, GE organisms or cells.

While the public debate on Bt brinjal and its eventual moratorium has resulted in a pause on the commercialisation of GM crops in India, open-air field trials still continue. There is a growing controversy around the open-air field trials of GM crops, especially GM corn that are taking place in the country, he said.

Radhakrishnan said though field trials had been stopped in many states due to the intervention of the local governments, Punjab and Haryana had given a go ahead for field trials of GM corn and the trials were taking place this season.

“It is a pity that the Indian government is ignoring the possibility of contamination through GM crops. Experiences from our country and others have demonstrated that field trials can lead to genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) entering the food supply chain and also endanger our biodiversity,” he said, urging the central government to stop all open-air field trials of GM crops in the country.
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4.After cotton, genetically modified mustard to hit Indian market
Payal Ganguly, 3 October 2012
http://newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/article1283591.ece

HYDERABAD: After Bt-Cotton, it is the turn of Genetically Modified (GM) Mustard to enter the Indian market – a project of Indian research scholars from public-funded institutes including the Delhi University and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

"There is no private company involved in the development of this crop and each stage of development of the crop is being documented and videographed to allay public fears over the consumption of the GM foods," said Dr. Swapan Kumar Datta, deputy director general (Crop Science), ICAR, at the ongoing biosafety meet at the HICC here Tuesday.

In a meeting on development of the GM foods and regulations in order to ensure biosafety, scientists and government representatives discussed the need to translate transgenic products as commercial products, accessible to farmers.

"Though genetic engineering is a technique of last resort to develop crops with additional attributes such as pest and drought resistance," said Dr. Kiran K. Sharma, principal scientist of International Crop research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Hyderabad.

Calling Bt-Cotton a success story in India, former chairman of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and former co-chairman of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) C. D Mayee said, "There have been no negative effects of cultivation of Bt Cotton in a decade and there are unlikely to be any. I have observed only positive effects of Bt-Cotton which gives farmers an opportunity to grow a second crop without the possibility of any bollworm infestations. It is due to Bt-Cotton that we have become exporters of cotton in contrast to two decades ago, when we had to import around 3 million bales of cotton."
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5.GM regulator openly propagandises for GM crops
GMWatch, 19 Jan 2007
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/6127

Back in October the Times of India reported that a leading Indian GM regulator was simultaneously 'a director of an international network funded by biotech majors such as Monsanto, Bayer and Dupont'. (GM regulator on panel funded by biotech majors) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2162116.cms

At the centre of the controversy over conflict-of-interest was Charudatta Mayee, the co-chairman of India's apex GM regulatory body – the GEAC, who the Times of India pointed out was also on the board of directors of ISAAA – the controversial GM propaganda and 'technology transfer' outfit whose high-profile board members, past and present, include Monsanto's Robert Fraley, Wally Beversdorf of Syngenta, and Gabrielle Persley, Executive Director of the AusBiotech Alliance.

If that weren't bad enough, yesterday Mayee went one better by taking a leading role in the PR promotion of one of ISAAA's controversial annual reports. These reports are renowned for inflating and distorting the figures on GM crop acceptance around the world. Mayee not only contributed to the ISAAA press release but also took an active part in promoting GM crops at the ISAAA's press conference, even doing his best to bat away 'a pointed question on farmer suicides in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra allegedly due to the failure of Bt cotton'.

At the time of the Times of India revelations, Mayee was said to be considering his position. If Mayee has not already resigned as co-chairman of the GEAC, then he must now go immediately. For a regulator to be working hand in glove with a biotech industry front organisation in this way is an absolute scandal, even in a country where GM governance is riddled not only with conflicts of interest but outright corruption.

Equally scandalous, though, is the content of what Mayee had to say, and also ISAAA's carefully calculated PR exploitation of India as an exemplar of the benefits of GM crops. One reason that Vidarbha – the main cotton growing belt of Maharashtra – came up at the ISAAA's press conference is not just that Vidarbha has been so horrifically scarred by farmer suicides but because the sudden escalation in suicides has tallied exactly with Bt cotton adoption.

It's important to understand that Maharashtra is the Indian state where farmers have bought into a bigger acreage of Bt cotton than anywhere else in the country. And they have bought into it not because of Bt cotton's demonstrable benefits but because of a massive PR campaign claiming Bt cotton means bumper returns. And what Mayee and ISAAA were doing with their press release and news conference in Delhi was – yet again – feeding that devastating campaign of hype.
At the press conference Mayee tried to dismiss the embarrassing issue of the spiralling suicides by claiming 'there was a good performance of Bt cotton in other parts of the country'. But we only have Mayee's word for that whereas the latest official overview of 'Farmers' suicides in Maharashtra' – from the office of the Divisional Commissioner – reports that Bt cotton 'yields have been unstable' and 'the net return has often been negative.' It goes on to say that, 'Bt cotton has not paid good returns' in the conditions under which 97% of Maharashtra's cotton is grown. Yet Bt cotton has been relentlessly hyped to farmers there. (New Bt cotton disaster in Maharashtra)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7323

More generally, Mayee tried to claim that Bt cotton has boosted India's overall cotton output, but these type of productivity claims have already been effectively demolished as nonsense with the help of ISAAA's (and USDA's) own data!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7433

What is particularly unsavoury is the way that Mayee and ISAAA sought to reinforce their hyping of Bt cotton by deploying 'Ravinder Brar, a widowed mother of two and biotech cotton farmer' to sing Bt cotton's praises. This is not the first time this 'widowed mother of two' has been used in this way. Earlier this year the industry flew Ravinder Brar to its BIO 2006 jamboree, where they presented her to former president Bill Clinton, amongst others.
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/article.asp?id=5611

The terrible irony of the biotech industry selecting a 'widowed mother' as the face of GM crops in India will not have been lost on those who've witnessed the devastation wrought there by the industry's murderous campaign of hype.