Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and Union Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation must take cognisance of the impact of genetically modified (GM) food. The Central Government must immediately stop all release of GM crops for open field trials and commercial use. The Union Ministry of Health should take the requisite steps to stop the release of genetically modified organisms into the nation’s food chain, including effective ban on it and mandatory labelling of imported processed food items. Resolutions to this effect were adopted at a seminar on ’Genetically modified food and seed – an achievement or a threat’ organised here recently by Indian Medical Association and South Against Genetic Engineering (SAGE).

India’s average yield has almost doubled to 560 kg per ha since the nation allowed farmers to use modified seeds for the first time in 2002. Farmers sowed gene-altered seeds, including Monsanto Co.’s Bollgard II variety, across two-thirds of the 9.6 million ha planted to cotton this year, up from 50% a year earlier. The area under gene-modified cotton may increase next year to about 8.5 million ha, or 80% of the total area, Cotton Corp.’s Grover said. ”Monsoon rains have been more or less good so far this season and that should further help the crop.”

Fresh troubles are brewing for the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), which is slated to meet on June 25, to take a decision on the approval of several Bt cotton hybrids for commercial cultivation in this season. The Supreme Court’s appointed invitee to the committee, Pushpa M Bhargava has not only called for a three or four years total moratorium on GM crops but has also called for ’a total review of India’s experience with Bt cotton’.

Growing crops without the use of GM seeds and chemical pesticides and yet getting a bountiful harvest is something agricultural scientists have never been taught to believe. When I told a recently concluded National Summit on GM crops, organised at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology at Thiruvanthapuram, Kerala, that if there is an alternative and sustainable way of reaping a plentiful harvest, wherein millions of small farmers cultivate a large number of crops without GM crops and chemical pesticides, they accused me of romanticising subsistence agriculture.

The cotton crop in Haryana, especially Bt cotton, is under threat from mealy bug, which may cause extensive damage to the crop if not controlled in time, said sources in the Haryana Agriculture Department. In the past, the cotton crop in the state had often been damaged by the American Bollworm. [...] However, now a threat by another bug looms large. It was generally believed that Bt cotton was pest-resistant, but B.S. Duggal, Additional Director, Haryana Agriculture, says Bt cotton is safe only from bollworm and not mealy bug.

Eminent scientists from the fields of agriculture, biotechnology and medicine wrote to Mr Kapil Sibal, Minister for Science & Technology, Government of India, urging him to refrain from being pro-GM in his stand and to become scientific and democratic in his understanding of the technology and its implications. They were responding to the Minister’s statements to a national television channel recently. They pointed out that a recent UN study shows that India, like many other developing countries, is vulnerable to bio-terrorism attacks given the lack of technical, policy and enforcement capacities related to modern biotechnologies.

Agriculture Minister Mullakkara Ratnakaran has reiterated the State government stand against field trials of genetically modified seeds. Addressing the ”National Summit on GM Crops,” organised by the Sastra Vedi, an arm of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, here on Saturday, Mr. Ratnakaran said the decision not to allow field trials would protect Kerala’s spices which had a large market in European countries that were opposed to GM crops and food. The situation was serious enough for India to declare the basmati growing tracts of Western India as GM free zone, he said

”There was no barrier around the whole field and I visited the field five times, which should not have been allowed,” said Selvam. R. Selvam, president of the Erode District Organic Farmers Federation. First cotton; now brinjal. Both have their centre of origin in India and this must be one of the few countries where there has been very little debate on the safety or even necessity of genetically modified (GM) crops. While Bt cotton is already grow in in India, there are growing protests against the release of India’s first GM food crop: brinjal.

The seed multinational, Monsanto has suggested inclusion of the provision for maintaining data confidentiality in the draft National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill-2008. Monsanto India’s manager of regulatory affairs, Devraj Arya said : ”It is a good thing to have a single window clearance of genetically modified (GM) products, but the new law should ensure data confidentiality. This is absolutely necessary in the IPR regime and we cannot afford to stand the risk of making such sensitive data public.”

The Vidarbha Jan Andolan (VJAS) activists have reported shocking facts, all types of plants and ruby crops are severely infected by Mealy Bug, a virus gifted by imported Bt.cotton supplied MNC Monsanto. The VJAS warned that coming khariff season will have it”’s wider effect and larger area spread covering all most all crops and set to destroy of next year not only cotton crop but all the other food crops hence too plant eater killer. VJAS president Kishor Tiwari urged the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ban Monsanto Bt. Cotton seeds in agrarian crisis hit West Vidarbha in order to save more than 3 million distress and debt trapped vidarbha cotton farmers. He also demanded CBI probe over the Mealy Bug spread in Vidarbha region.