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Latest on GM crop trial scandal in India (5/1/2006)

Here's some news from Kavitha Kuruganti on important developments in the crop trial scandal in India exposed by the team led by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA).

The CSA exposed how Mahyco - Monsanto's partner in India - has been conducting secret trials on GM vegetables in Andhra Pradesh and that the farmer whose land was being used had not even been informed that it was a GM crop. It also appeared the farmer and other local people had been consuming the vegetable without knowing it was GM or that it had yet to be cleared for human consumption. Some of the crop may have even reached the open market.

It also emerged that the farmer's only point of contact with anyone over the trial was with a temporary employee of Mahyco whose contract with the company was terminated soon after a team of university scientists came and visited the trial plots. The farmer was then left not knowing what to do with the crop which was just left standing in his field.

The Andhra Pradesh government and the largest farmers' union in AP have both now taken robust action in response to this outrage.
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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006
From: Kavitha Kuruganti
[email protected]
Subject: follow up news on Bt Okra

dear friends,

wanted to inform you that after the story on GM Okra and the irregularities in the trials was broken, two things happened:

1. The Andhra Pradesh government has responded immediately to this development : they stopped the ANGR Agricultural University team of scientists who had visited the trial plot on the behest of the Department of Biotechnology from sending their report onward to the department, which had given the permission for the trial, since the government here has not been informed about the trial.

It is now confirmed that neither the Agriculture Department nor the Horticulture department at the state level have been informed, or consent taken, for the trial.

The AP government has also decided to write to the DBT and the GEAC that permissions for trials cannot be given without communicating to the state government.

Incidentally, this is a repeat story from the secretive Bt Cotton trials where at least two state governments [Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka] protested against the fact that state governments are not being informed or consulted on these trials.

2. The Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam [largest farmers' union in AP] and its Guntur unit visited the field in Narakoduru village on 29th of December and on the same day, along with the company personnel, destroyed the standing crop in the trial plot.

kavitha
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see also:
Does India need GM Food? The case of the Bt Okra Field Trial in Guntur
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6077

Concern over field trials of GM food
Gargi Parsai
The Hindu, Jan 4 2005
http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/04/stories/2006010403481400.htm

Farmer unaware of trial being conducted
High incidence of pests in Bt Okra
Financial Express, India - Dec 27, 2005
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=112815

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