A new article by Kasturi Das, a Researcher at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India, has been published on the GM Watch site.

GM Crops in India: Why Open Pandora's Box? can be found here: http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=54&page= 1

The article looks at how the current Indian Government is planning to promote GM crops. Kasturi Das notes that a panel has been set up to formulate a National Biotechnology Policy and to put in place a single window system of clearance for transgenic products by January 2005, so as to ensure a speedy approval of GM crops.

The panel is likely to draw on the Report of the Task Force on Application of Biotechnology in Agriculture. The Task force was headed by the agricultural scientist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan , who is also a member of the new Government panel. However, Kasturi Das warns that the recommendations of the Swaminathan Task Force contain glaring flaws and contradictions. Kasturi Das examines these in detail.

She notes that the Task Force Report asserts, "The bottom line of our national agricultural biotechnology policy should be the economic well being of farm families, food security of the nation, health security of the consumer, protection of the environment and the security of our national and international trade in farm commodities" (Section II.1.2).

Kasturi Das warns that the proclaimed commitment towards these objectives is mere rhetoric. The actual aim is to facilitate the promotion of GM crops in the country by putting in place a regulatory and policy regime that will ensure speedy and hassle-free approval for the commercial cultivation of transgenic crops in India.

What is all the more perplexing, she says, is that in order to create enough justification for its evidently pro-GM prescriptions, the Task Force relentlessly attempts to project transgenic crops as the most appropriate means to achieve the above mentioned goals. However to date there is no concrete and conclusive evidence to show GM can fulfil any of these targets. On the contrary, Kasturi Das argues, there is a plenty of evidence, which indicates the potential regressive impact of genetic engineering in all these respects.

Here are some excerpts from the article (for the full text and references: http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=54&page= 1 )

...[India] is the home of over 47,000 species of plants and 81,000 species of animals, making it one of the twelve mega-biodiversity countries of the world. With merely 2.4 per cent of the land area, India accounts for about 7 to 8 per of the recorded species of the earth. In fact, it is this treasure of bio-resources, which has performed a significant role in ensuring the food and livelihood security of millions of poor farming families of India.

Unfortunately, a substantial portion of this precious biodiversity has already been lost during the last four decades due to the monoculture-based Green Revolution agriculture. Hence what is really crucial is to reformulate our national agricultural policy in such a manner that preservation of the remaining biodiversity reserves is ensured.

Apparently, the Task Force also seems to recognize the importance of biodiversity conservation. However, in an attempt to marry the two inherently contradictory objectives of GM promotion on the one hand and biodiversity conservation on the other, it ends up with a disastrous proposal of reducing India into a primarily GM-cultivating country with a few pockets of "Agro-Biodiversity Sanctuaries", i.e., regions, which are very rich in biodiversity resources (Section II.7.1 & II.7.2). It is recommended by the Task Force that cultivation of GM-crops should be prohibited in these mega-biodiversity centers and hot spots of agro-biodiversity " until more data are available on the long-term impact of the introgression of transgenic material in native biodiversity". This points to the implicit recognition of the potential adverse impacts of GM crops on biodiversity by the Task Force. Why then did it not recommend a moratorium on GM cultivation throughout India, until the issue of genetic contamination of native biodiversity was resolved conclusively? Why is it necessary to convert a country so richly endowed with bio-resources in almost every nook and corner into one with only a few agro-biodiversity hot spots, and that too in such a hasty manner? There is absolutely no justification for putting the precious bio-resources of India under such potential threat just for the unfounded urgency of allowing GM cultivation. Moreover, the proposal of the Task Force of conserving biodiversity in a few pockets of the country while permitting GM cultivation elsewhere is simply absurd. Because, once large-scale cultivation of GM crops is allowed, preservation of agro-biodiversity in their "pristine purity" (as urged by the Task Force Report in Section II.7.1) even in the (proposed) earmarked "Agro-Biodiversity Sanctuaries" can no longer be guaranteed, for reasons discussed...

The Task Force has also failed miserably in dealing with the more sensitive and crucial issue of conservation of genetic diversity pertaining to rice, for which India is a 'centre of origin and diversity'. Rice being the staple food of a substantial proportion of the world population, preservation of rice biodiversity in this 'centre of origin and diversity' assumes tremendous importance not only for India but also for the food security of the world as a whole. Hence, in order to safeguard this global resource of crucial significance it is extremely important for India to completely prohibit cultivation of GM rice so that the risk of contamination of the natural rice germplasm can be ruled out entirely. The Task Force has instead come out once again with a recommendation of protecting the regions highly rich in rice genetic resources (such as the Jeypore tract of Orissa) as "Agro-Biodiversity Sanctuaries" (Section II.7.1).

The Mexican experience with maize, for which Mexico is a 'centre of origin and diversity', however, indicates the grave danger of allowing cultivation of GM varieties of a particular crop in its 'centre of origin and diversity'. Mexico - the abode of the greatest diversity of cultivars and wild species of maize - has already been found to be contaminated by GE maize. A study undertaken in the USA has demonstrated that even in remote Mexican valleys local maize varieties contain genes from transgenic Bt-maize. According to Ignacio Chapella, the scientist from the University of California (USA), whose team was involved in the research, "What this means is that an entire species in its native state may soon become, in effect, genetically contaminated".

India will pave the way for a similar potential threat to the precious rice genetic resources of our country if GM cultivation of rice is allowed in any part of the nation. The Agro-biotech industry often argues that there is no danger of foreign gene flow in the case of rice because it is a self-pollinating crop and hence native rice would not accept genes from its GM counterpart. But there exists ample evidence in the scientific literature to negate this view. The outcome of a recent study undertaken by scientists at China's Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Ecological Engineering and the Institute of Biodiversity Science at Fundan University on the potential for contamination of non-GE rice and wild varieties by GE rice is worth mentioning here. The findings of this research have revealed that outcro