GM crops debate needs Swadeshi voice

By the end of the active stage of the ‘Green Revolution’, the result of the long campaign had been to take away from Bharat’s farmers their legitimate claims to being scientists, innovators, natural resource stewards, seed savers and hybridisation experts.

The agro-ecological farming systems of Bharat have been placed under modern threat from the time that the ‘Green Revolution’ was planned. This planning became manifest through the direct policy support given to the public finance and sanction given to the creation of ‘command areas’ which were fed by the water collected behind new large dams. But it also became manifest through the connections that were being created between our national agricultural research system and the West, in particular the agricultural universities of the USA.
That threat took form from the early 1960s, and one of its results was to lead a generation of crop scientists, agricultural administrators and State and Central Governments to accept ‘high yielding’ and ‘productivity’ and ‘hybrids’ as the only dimensions of the relationship between staple crops and the provision of food to Bharat’s people. These views were successfully marketed, thanks to sustained and continuous support by the Government machinery, to the consuming public, and even found place in school textbooks in all major languages. In this way, the idea that a ‘scientific’ approach to new ways of growing our staple crops was projected to our society as being the only modern way.
When this happened, for over a generation of younger citizens who became adults in the early 2000s, the idea that agriculture is equal to well-applied doses of science was one that went largely unquestioned. Meanwhile, the role of the kisan was deliberately diminished. By the end of the active stage of the ‘Green Revolution’, the result of the long campaign had been to take away from Bharat’s farmers their legitimate claims to being scientists, innovators, natural resource stewards, seed savers and hybridisation experts. Instead, they were reduced to becoming recipients of technical fixes and consumers of the poisonous products of a growing agricultural inputs industry.
It is against such a background – which is a chapter of the overall transformation of the cultivation of food in Bharat – that the opposition to genetically-modified crops and food is to be viewed. The steadfast opposition to this technology is grounded in the recognition that our country’s immense biodiversity of seeds, plants and life forms is our collective heritage, which has evolved through the cumulative innovations, adaptations and selections of many generations of indigenous farming communities, for whom these seeds and life forms are sacred.
When this position is understood, then the reason why genetically modified organisms – uncontrollable and irreversible when let into the agro-ecological environment – and their produce is so despised, becomes plain. It is not a matter of science alone, as the geneticists and their financiers claim, but has as much, if not more, to do with culture, independence and self-reliance. These are essential aspects of the GM discussion which the proponents and advocates cannot employ, because none of these aspects favours their position.
Articles such as ‘GM crops debate can do without Swadeshi paranoia’ (by Surajit Dasgupta in Niticentral, 30 July 2014) follow a pattern of advocacy. They treat technology of GM as being by itself the silver bullet that can solve all crop problems, they elevate GM scientists over all other science related to the practice of agriculture, they denigrate shamefully and belittle the farmer and her knowledge, they cast slurs on all those who are critical of GM and seek to discredit them by citing academic papers and other material that advocates GM. This is the pattern that we are seeing not only in Bharat, but wherever there is opposition to GM and to the policies that the technology depends on to enter a country.
The growing of our crop staples, of vegetables and fruit has to do with a great deal more than the adoption of a particular technology. On everything other than the need (always framed as urgent) to accept GM, the proponents and advocates of this technology can join no discussion, for that is the limit of their argument. For a generation, farmers’ groups and unions have been protesting the neglect that farm livelihoods have been subjected to. They have protested (and continue to) policy impacts that have caused the displacement of farmers in huge numbers because smallholder farming earns them nothing, or because their farms are swallowed up by racing urbanisation; they have been demanding a minimum living income as a guarantee to all farm households, which must be their due as food growers.
Who are they and what do they have? They have 85 per cent of the total holdings in Bharat (117.60 million marginal and small holdings of the total of 138.34 million) which account for 44.5 per cent of the land area under agriculture (71.15 million hectares of the total of 159.59 million hectares). It is this large section of our people, the providers of Bharat’s food on that 85 per cent of all farm holdings, whom we are accustomed to call ‘annadaata‘, that is represented by organisations like the Bhartiya Kisan Union, the largest farmers’ union in the country, which has opposed GM crops (and field trials) from the outset. “We are concerned about farm community’s and nation’s seed and food sovereignty which will certainly be eroded when GMOs are pursued as a technology,” was the BKU statement, which powerfully shows us why GM is a socio-economic, ecological and cultural question, none of which are subordinated to science.
This is what worries the growers of Bharat’s food. Technological and market fixes have not shortened this list of worries but have done the opposite. The subject for us is the growing of crop staples, or crop choice, the methods used to cultivate, the support that the ‘kisan’ finds, and the environmental and cultural links between crop grower and food consumer. When considering this multi-dimensional nature of food and farming, it is important to note (which the GM advocates and proponents omit) that conventional crop breeding continues to meet important challenges like improving drought tolerance, improving nitrogen fertiliser efficiency, and increasing yields according to the contexts of the different agro-ecological regions in our country. When we reached self-sufficiency in food staples, we did so by relying on crop breeding together with providing support (erratic as it was, prone to politically manipulation) to our ‘kisans’. Where then is the place for GM?
There is none. That is why proponents have resorted to quoting papers that are designed by institutions outside Bharat which have a great interest in facilitating the grabbing of Bharat’s genetic commons and bio-cultural heritage to be privatised and monopolised. The Bharat Beej Swaraj Manch had stated their opposition to GM most forcefully in a statement (released in New Delhi earlier this year): “We assert our sovereign rights to freely plant, use, reproduce, select, improve, adapt, save, share, exchange or sell our seeds – without restriction or hindrance – as we have done for past millennia.” GM has no place in this assertion, by a countrywide seed savers’ network, of the rights of kisans.
There is no place for GM under any of the scenarios presented by the proponents (climate change in particular). As an indication of our enormous agro-diversity, the National Gene Bank of the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources has said that its base collections total 402,894 accessions of 1,586 crop species. These include 159,569 cereals, 57,523 millets, 58,756 pulses or grain legumes, 58,477 oilseeds, 25,330 vegetables, 6,872 medicinal and aromatic plants, and 3,847 spices and condiments. There is in this astonishing collection (and the kisans’ own collections) all that our country needs to find staples that will deal, as Surajit Dasgupta has mentioned, with “increasing temperatures, decreased water availability in some places and flooding in others, rising salinity, and changing pathogen and insect threats”.
The methods to deal with these have been practiced by the cultivating households (of which there are many within our 167 million rural households) in the 20 agro-ecological regions of Bharat and their 60 sub-regions over which are roughly apportioned the diversities of soil, climate, physiography, the availability periods of conducive moisture (which determines the length of growing seasons). They had perfected crop rotations (largely abandoned by industrial agriculture) and which can increase yields by even 20 per cent, the water holding capacity of soils (woefully under-studied) had been improved, they lowered susceptibility to drought by planting cover crops that increase soil organic matter, they had saved themselves from water pollution by nitrogen and the need for pesticides.
This is a small glimpse of the wider context in which the GM advocates and proponents work, but they do so outside the dimension of cognitive justice that ties us together – acknowledging the right for different knowledge systems to exist with their associated practices, livelihoods, ways of being, and ecologies to coexist. It is organisations like Anchalika Krushak Sanghatan of Odisha, Bhu Adhikar Abhiyan of Madhya Pradesh, Ekta Parishad, Gujarat Khedut Samaj, Bharat Swabhimaan Andolan Lucknow, Shetkari Sanghatan of Maharastra that are rearticulating this wider context in which GM and the techno-capital domination is represents. These are a few amongst the many organisations that have created diverse spaces which democratise food, its research and its provision, and whose hundreds of thousands of members practice bio-diverse ecological agriculture free from the narrow issues of technology and its overlords.

Authored jointly by Rahul Goswami and Viva Kermani
First appeared in Niti Central
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/08/01/gm-crops-debate-needs-swadeshi-voice-235071.html

GM food crops – Why India must say no

When the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) on July 18 decided that open field trials of 21 new varieties of genetically modified (GM) crops should be permitted, the arguments contra and pro became considerably more intense. That a single committee is seen to have the experience and foresight to judge the consequences of allowing open field trials of genetically modified rice, wheat, maize and other food crops can hardly be believed, but that is the state of what passes for ‘regulation’ these days.

Desperate to corner the Indian market, which is seen in international agri-business as vital for the long-term profitability of the food bio-tech companies, the GM seed companies have pulled out many tricks in order to try and make their arguments convincing. The latest attempt is to claim that India needs GM food crops to feed its growing population and that without GM crops we will never be able to feed ourselves. This claim is worse than specious and is amongst those that provoked outrage enough to lead the Minister into distancing his Government from the decision of the committee.

What GM technology proponents fail to tell you is that India has been self-sufficient in food staples for over a decade, and more than that for cereals. Today the country grows about 100 million tons (mt) of rice, 95 mt of wheat, 170 mt of vegetables, 85 mt of fruit, 40 mt of coarse cereals and 18 mt of pulses (refer to the Economic Survey for the data). These totals ensure that our farmers grow enough to feed all Indians well with food staples. We have 66 mt of grain, two-and-a-half times the required buffer stock (on January 1, 2013). The country has reached this stage through, first and foremost, the knowledge and skill of our farmers who have bred and saved seed themselves and exchanged their seed in ways that made our fields so bio-diverse.

This is the aspect that the GM proponents, such as Amol Parth (‘GM Field Trials-Government must be guided by Consumer and Farmer Choice‘) miss or omit by design. Instead, the statements that they use such as “thousands die of hunger daily in India” are irresponsible and baseless scare-mongering with a view to projecting GM as the only answer. When our people go hungry, or suffer from malnutrition, it is not for lack of food, it is because their right to safe and nutritious food that is culturally connected has been blocked. That is why it is not a technological fix problem and GM has no place in it.
Recognising the wider context, the Technical Expert Committee appointed by the Supreme Court, in its interim report of October 17, 2012, had also recommended a ten-year moratorium on field trials of Bt food crops. Why did they do this? No field trials of Bt transgenic crops until gaps in the regulatory system are addressed, the committee had said. Field trials are conducted before establishing biosafety as GM contamination from field trials may be detected after years, and such contamination is irreversible. Yet the GEAC has chosen to ignore the Supreme Court recommendations – this must be questioned.
Moreover, the TEC could not find any justification for India becoming the first country where major food crop that is directly used for human consumption is genetically modified. The health risks are too great. Routinely, the GM industry influences scientific journals to publish reviews purportedly showing that GM foods are safe on the basis of long-term animal studies, whereas they show considerable evidence of risk and use unscientific double standards to reach conclusions not justified by the data. This is part of the GM lobby’s bag of dirty tricks, a bag now opened in our country.
A common argument made in favour of GM crops is that the farmer benefits as yield increase. This is a totally spurious claim designed to hoodwink our farmers, who are already struggling with high input costs. European countries are often criticised for their opposition to GM whereas impartial research has shown that Europe’s mostly non-GM agriculture delivers higher yields than the USA’s mostly GM agriculture with less pesticide use. On the contrary, it is the GM-adopting USA that is falling behind Europe in terms of productivity and sustainability.
Seventeen years after its introduction, only 3.4 per cent of the world’s agricultural land is sown with GM seed. If this technology is as wondrous as its mischievous supporters claim, and is the answer for improved yield and lower costs, why has it not been embraced more widely? Quite simply because the good sense of farmers has halted its spread. Food growing countries, states, districts and farmers understand fully well that GM technology is about patents and control. Letting GM in will mean exposing the farmer, the consumer and the nation to unacceptable risk. Our seed sovereignty is dear to us. That is why the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), India’s largest farmer union, on July 21, stated that GMOs are unsafe and are not needed in India.
For a country that has great diversity and a vast repository of seeds and knowledge that come to us from agricultural systems many generations old, it is in our national interest to protect our seeds and traditional knowledge and bar multi-national seed companies that want to control our food system. This is what swadeshi economics means.

This article first appeared in NITI Central http://www.niticentral.com/2014/07/23/gm-food-crops-why-india-must-say-no-234572.html

GMOs are uneeded and unsafe - says India's largest farmer union

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) on July 18th gave the green signal for field trials of genetically modified (GM) rice, mustard, cotton, chickpea and brinjal at its meeting in Delhi. This has led to widespread condemnation by various groups - from  the RSS, to  Swadeshi Jagran Manch,  Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS),Gujarat Khedut Samaj, Organic Farmers’ Association

 I am reproducing the letter here as its not available online

Below is a copy of the letter from Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) dated  July 21st, 2014

To:

Shri Prakash Javadekar,

Central Minister for Environment, 

 Forests and Climate Change (I/C),

Government of India,

Paryavaran Bhawan, CGO Complex,

New Delhi.

Respected Shri Javadekar,

Sub: GMOs are unneeded and unsafe – urge you to cancel field trial approvals given by regulators.

Respected Sir,

Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) is the largest farmers’ union in the country working for farmers’ rights and benefits in various states of India. From the time the debate unfolded in India on the controversial technology of Genetically Modification (GM), we have been opposed to GM crops being allowed in India, including for field trials. 

The reasons for this are many – we are concerned about farm community’s and nation’s seed and food sovereignty which will certainly be eroded when GMOs are pursued as a technology. This is because most genes as well as processes of transgenics are already patented and these IPRs work for the monopolistic or oligopolistic benefit of profit-hungry corporations like Monsanto. It is well known by now that the ease with which transgenic technology allows corporations to claim ownership rights over seeds is what makes it attractive to these corporations who spin lies around why the world needs these GMOs. All their claims are hyped, unfounded and false whether it be related to productivity, or lack of need for chemicals or stress-tolerant GMOs etc.  GMOs, backed by IPRs, are the way by which corporations want to control entire food chains. The implications are clear and have already been experienced by farmers here in India in the case of Bt cotton and elsewhere, in the case of other GMOs too. Seed prices will increase exorbitantly; these corporations will not hesitate to sue even governments in their pursuit of profits; seed choices will be highly limited for farmers; farmers will be driven to make irrational choices with a changed scenario related to seed supply; farmers will be sued in the name of proprietary rights when GM contamination happens, which of course is inevitable. All of this seriously jeopardizes the livelihood security of farmers.

Another important aspect of this debate is the lack of safety of GMOs – there is enormous scientific evidence that is already available to show that GMOs are unsafe, both for human and animal health and for our environment. If our crop ecosystems are disrupted, and our very soils affected, once again it becomes a livelihood security issue for us farmers.

A neglected but important side to this debate is that of the very need for GMOs. It has been shown very convincingly by scores of scientists in India, in a letter addressed to a former Environment Minister that GMOs do not bring in food security; on the country, in countries which opted for GMOs in a significant manner, the food security indicators worsened. For all the various problems that GM is touted as a solution for, there are better, safer answers which are actually more affordable both for governments to take the solutions to farmers, and for farmers themselves to adopt. It is these solutions that need to be promoted urgently, while GM is a dangerous, unneeded, costly distraction.

Sir, BJP seems to be belying its promises in its manifesto by allowing deliberate release of untested GMOs into the environment through the latest approvals accorded by the GEAC. 

We urge you to intervene and get the approvals annulled immediately, to keep the party’s word to the electorate of this country, to show respect towards the judiciary which is right now looking into the matter through the PIL filed by Ms Aruna Rodrigues and others, and most importantly to show conclusively that your government will act on behalf of citizens’ interests. Like we said, there is not a single convincing reason why the government should rush ahead with these trials of new organisms in our Nature and environment. Once again, we request you to cancel the approvals urgently. Thank you.

Sincerely

Naresh Tikait Dharmendra Malik        Yudhveer Singh

(President BKU)    (Coordinator BKU)           (Genral Secretary BKU)