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India should resist US-backed WTO pressure (3/10/2006)

1.Re-engineering your food - SUMAN SAHAI
2.India should resist US-backed WTO pressure - BHASKAR GOSWAMI
3.Holes in Indian laws promote biopiracy - S. BALA RAVI

EXTRACTS: Knowing that India has not violated any WTO norms, the US is still trying to use the Geneva route to open the Indian market to GM foods. It is opposing India's efforts to set standards for labeling GM products. Terming it as trade restrictive, it has threatened to invoke the WTO provisions on creating technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures.

...major trading partners of the US, such as Canada, Japan, South Korea, the European Union and Australia follow their own GM labeling protocols but the US has never brought [WTO] complaints against these countries [over labeling]. It is obvious that the notifications are not only discriminatory but meant to browbeat India into submission. While the extreme reaction of the US is not surprising, the government should resist the attempt of the US to dump GM food into India..." (item 2)
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1.Re-engineering your food
A sound regulatory system should be the first course
SUMAN SAHAI Financial Express, October 4 2006
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=142281

Genetically engineered (GE) foods are promoted as the answer to hunger even though it is widely recognised that hunger persists because the poor do not have access to productive assets to grow food or incomes to buy food. A technical input like GE will not change either situation and hence has little chance of addressing either hunger or poverty. The Asia director of the UN World Food Programme is on record saying that in Asia, access to food is the problem, not its production, which is sufficient.

Apart from this, there is widespread concern about the impact of GE crops on the environment and the health of animals and people. The biotechnology industry has insisted that GE foods are safe to eat, even as evidence mounts that this may not be the case. Data on the health damage caused by eating GE foods comes from several studies, including one that was conducted by the multinational giant, Monsanto, the results of which were leaked to the public. The Monsanto report that rats fed on a diet rich in GE maize produced by them, developed organ abnormalities, changes in the blood profile and collapse of the immune system, have once again raised fears about human health risks from eating genetically engineered foods.

The health impacts of GE foods are usually not tested since funds are seldom made available for such studies. When such studies have been done, as in the case of the studies showing health damage to rats from eating GE potatoes, the results are sharply attacked by the biotech industry. When the first GE tomato "Flavr Savr" was fed to rodents in laboratory studies in 1994, many developed lesions in the stomach.

Seven of the 40 experimental rats died within two weeks. There have been numerous other reports of stomach lesions in rats, false pregnancies in cows, excessive cell growth and damage to animal immune systems, following feeding studies conducted with GE foods.

Researchers at the University of Cornell, US, observed that the caterpillars of monarch butterflies when fed with genetically modified corn suffered varying degrees of ailments, and were crawling more slowly than usual. Scientists concluded that 44% of the caterpillars died after being fed continuously with the GE corn. None of those exposed to normal corn suffered. The government research establishment in Australia decided to discontinue work on GE peas after food safety tests repeatedly showed that rats suffered damage to organs and the immune system on being fed GE peas.

In India, both the public and private sector are engaged in research on GE crops and several crops, including food crops like brinjal, cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes, tomatoes and rice are in the pipeline. Large-scale field trials, running into several lakh hectares have been sanctioned for Bt brinjal and Bt okra. In the light of the alarming evidence that is gathering about the health risks of GE foods and the lack of information about the kind of food and feed safety tests being conducted or their outcomes, it would be advisable to hold back the release of GE foods for now. A rigorous testing protocol for food and feed safety must be put in place and sufficient data on the impact of GE foods on human and animal health must be collected before we consider releasing food crops or permitting their import.

GE foods are being imported indiscriminately. Many foods are imported from the US, which has a policy not to label them. It is thought that much of the imported maize and soybean is genetically engineered, and so are numerous food products that are available in the supermarkets. It is crucial that the public is involved in any decision-making on food crops that they will be consuming. The final decision on whether a food crop should be allowed into the country must rest with the consumer.

The methodology used for the food and feed safety tests must be made known to the public, as also the labs where such safety tests are conducted. All decisions on GE crops and foods must be taken in accordance with the provisions of the internationally agreed Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which suggests the following: a Precautionary Principle, taking into account the socio-economic impact of such crops and foods on local communities and which requires public participation in all decision making.

Releasing GE foods into the market, either through research programmes in India or through imports must be held in abeyance until technically strong regulatory systems are put in place and publicly conducted cost and risk benefit analyses are done.

- The writer is convener of the Gene Campaign
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2.Standards, not double standards, please India should take US-backed WTO attempts to thrust GM foods on us with a pinch of salt
BHASKAR GOSWAMI Financial Express, October 4 2006
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=142280

If things do not work your way, seek influence of a heavy weight. This is exactly what the United States is trying to do. With India not accepting genetically modified (GM) foods, the US is trying to rope in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to exert pressure. Knowing that India has not violated any WTO norms, the US is still trying to use the Geneva route to open the Indian market to GM foods. It is opposing India's efforts to set standards for labeling GM products. Terming it as trade restrictive, it has threatened to invoke the WTO provisions on creating technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures.

Either way, India is refusing to blindly toe the American line. The government has taken two significant measures to regulate GM products. First, the ministry of commerce has issued a notification, which prohibits the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for food, feed or processing, industrial processing, research and development for commercialisation or environmental release without the approval of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC).

Second, the health ministry has amended the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act, and issued a similar notification which covers import, manufacture, storage, distribution or sale of GM food. Both these new rules have also made labeling of GM products compulsory.

Human safety from eating GM foods has been a matter of great concern. After GM soya was introduced in the UK, for instance, cases of allergies went up. A 2005 study found that GM pea, which is under development, caused severe immune responses in mice. Another study reported that GM maize-fed rats developed major lesions in kidneys and livers. Likewise, a number of other scientific studies have pointed out the harmful effects of GM food.

Notwithstanding GM industry claims to the contrary, the fact remains that many aspects of this technology still remain uncertain and several products are being released into the market without adequate tests and trials. In agriculture, for example, GM and non-GM crops cannot grow in isolation and can easily combine through pollination, mixing of seeds etc. Experiments to study the impact of such contamination on the environment and food have simply not been done. It is, therefore, to prevent illegal imports, and also to enable consumers to make a conscious choice that labeling norms are essential.

Since the US does not segregate GM products from non-GM ones, almost all processed food products contain traces of GMOs. This is also the main reason why they persistently oppose labeling. Ironically, while goods imported into the US have to meet the most stringent specification, whenever any US exporter is directed to follow the same procedures by the importing country, it is termed as a trade barrier. When similar tactics failed with India, the US turned to the WTO, which has legal instruments, to help it out.

Using multilateral bodies to prevent GM labeling is not new. The US has consistently blocked international legislation on labeling at various forums like the United Nations' Food Standards Committee and Codex Committee on Food Labeling. However, this time it has challenged the sovereign right of India to decide about its food and its safety, something which is not only against democratic principles but also runs contrary to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. As it is, under pressure from edible oil importers in India, the commerce ministry has exempted the import of GM soybean oil from labeling requirement till March 2007. Even the amended PFA of the health ministry is quite lax. Instead of rigorous biosafety tests before allowing the import, the ministry is merely relying on the safety information provided by the importer.

Further, the amendment is coming at a time when there is no laboratory in the country, which can test products for GM presence. Instead of protecting the health interests of the citizens by prohibiting production or import of GM food, the amendment in its present form intends to legalise its trade. Now, through the WTO, the US wants India to lift all curbs on the import of GM products into the country.

Incidentally, major trading partners of the US, such as Canada, Japan, South Korea, European Union and Australia follow their own GM labeling protocols but the US has never brought such complaints against these countries. It is obvious that the notifications are not only discriminatory but meant to browbeat India into submission. While the extreme reaction of the US is not surprising, the government should resist the attempt of the US to dump GM food into India and concerned citizens should insist on strengthening the PFA in the interest of the consumer.

- The writer is with the Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security, New Delhi
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3.Holes in Indian laws promote biopiracy
SciDev.net, 28 September 2006
http://www.scidev.net/dossiers/index.cfm?fuseaction=dossierReadItem&type=3&itemid=523&language=1&dossier=11&CFID=4424593&CFTOKEN=72591327

S. Bala Ravi argues that deficiencies in India's seed and biodiversity policies promote biopiracy.

In India, centuries of intimate human dependence on biodiversity have generated a rich traditional knowledge of the use and conservation of wild species, and have increased the genetic diversity of agriculturally important plants and animals. The country is one of the world's eight major centres of crop diversity with an estimated 163 fruit tree and crop species having originated there.

National laws and policies relating to biodiversity therefore have immense implications for the livelihoods, food security and health of the majority of India's 1.1 billion people. But inconsistencies in two Indian laws enacted in the past five years encourage the unfair misappropriation of Indian genetic resources.

The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act of 2001 (PPVFR Act) complies with the World Trade Organization's agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. The act protects the rights of plant breeders, farmers and researchers over plant varieties.

The Biological Diversity Act of 2002 (BD Act), meanwhile, seeks to establish India's sovereignty over its biological resources and associated traditional knowledge. In line with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the act aims to establish a system for managing access to biodiversity and how benefits from its use are shared.

Granting access

Under the BD Act access to biological resources by non-Indian people or companies and by non-resident Indians requires prior approval of the National Biodiversity Authority. This applies to research and "bio-survey and bio-utilisation", which the act defines as research activities that explore the commercial potential of biological resources or associated knowledge.

For resident Indian citizens and companies, the State Biodiversity Board must grant permission for access, while for local communities none of these restrictions applies.

Intellectual property rights over innovations based on Indian biological resources or traditional knowledge can be established only with the prior approval of the National Biodiversity Authority, which will notify the public of approvals. During such granting of permission, a mutually agreed decision on benefit sharing is made.

A major problem arises from a provision in the BD Act that allows the government to exempt certain items "including biological resources normally traded as commodities" from the remit of the act. In the case of seeds, which are tradable commodity, such an exemption in the absence of other laws to regulate seed exports opens a legitimised door for biopiracy.

The BD Act has other deficiencies that undermine it provisions on access and benefit sharing. The terms 'commercial utilisation', 'use' and 'utilisation' are critical to the way the act restricts access to biological resources. But the act defines neither use nor utilisation. And although it defines 'commercial utilisation' as any activity that generates economic gain, this definition excludes "conventional breeding or traditional practices in use in any agriculture".

Therefore access to Indian genetic resources for use in conventional breeding or other traditional practices followed in agriculture, even by the non-Indian entities does not require prior approval under BD Act.

Legitimising piracy

If seeds were exempted, this would mean that the only law controlling access to them would be the PPVFR Act, which allows anyone conducting research free access without prior informed consent to any genetic resource, including varieties protected by plant breeders' rights.

The PPVFR Act does not differentiate the nationalities of people or organisations accessing Indian genetic resources, including varieties protected by plant breeders' rights, for breeding new varieties. The only exception is the need for prior informed consent for repeated use of such a protected variety as a parental line for the commercial production of a new variety.

These mean that non-Indian entities can freely access plant genetic resources and associated knowledge for use in breeding or for bio-surveys within India.

Secondly, having freely accessed the genetic resources of choice to develop breeding lines or new varieties or nothing, seeds of this material can be taken out in different pretexts as 'exports'.

The lack of a legal system regulating seed exports and of an informed customs system with the capacity to verify what is exported leaves a wide open door for the unchecked outflow of the planting material of virtually any genetic resource including farmers' varieties, land races and pre-bred material.

Once these resources are taken out through the trade route and used in conventional or non-conventional breeding, there is virtually no way to ensure that benefits are shared equitably to the communities that generated and conserved these resources.

The irony is that laws established to protect these resources and promote their conservation are in fact legitimising their piracy and misappropriation from the holder community.

- S. Bala Ravi is a scientist at the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India.

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