For the first time, Maharashtra has officially admitted that cotton yield is likely to reduce by nearly 40%. Bt cotton failure in more than 4 million hectares of land has reduced cotton yieldfrom 3.5 million quintal to 2.2 million quintal. A report sent by the state agricultural department to the Centre states that the estimate of the net direct economic loss to cotton farmers in the state will be nearly Rs6,000 crore, whereas accumulated losses are likely to cross more than Rs20,000 crore due to a steep rise in cultivation costs.

The controversy surrounding GM food crops in the country shows no signs of cooling down. Even as the debate over field trials of genetically modified crops rages, a group of scientists, activists and farmers’ associations has demanded removal of a top GM researcher caught in a false patent claim. In a letter to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture has sought action against Dr K.C. Bansal, head of India’s gene bank, for making a false claim about filing a patent on GM brinjal to grab a top award in 2009, as reported in Mail Today on October 29.

The State government has kicked up a row by transferring the deputy conservator of forests (DCF) probing the controversy of bio-piracy, involving Mahyco and University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad. Another officer has refused to be a complainant, thus violating the Biodiversity norms. Y Chakrapani, a second complainant and the investigating officer, has been transferred to Raichur as DCF (territorial) on November 5. The transfer comes just a month after the High Court opined that protests should be staged in front of the US Consulate against bio-piracy. High Court Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen, on October 16, during the hearing of a petition by Environment Support Group (ESG) seeking action against bio-piracy, had said, “Dharnas must be organised against the United States of America for its continued intransigence in complying with global biodiversity norms. This might perhaps be the best solution to the problems of global biodiversity conservation.”

Researchers from the UK, USA and India, led by scientists at the University of York, are embarking on a major four-year project which aims to develop new strains of rice to help to feed millions of people. The aim of the project is to develop varieties of rice that will be more resistant to extremes of climate to provide subsistence communities in India and elsewhere with more stable grain yields. Rice is the staple food for more than two billion people, but a quarter of global rice production – and 45 per cent in India – is in rain-fed environments. With climate change predicted to cause more droughts and flooding in the future, the challenge is to develop rice strains that are both drought and submersion tolerant.

India’s long-running social panic over genetically engineered agricultural crops has recently intensified. In August, a parliamentary standing committee produced a report that was highly critical of a 2009 Genetic Engineering Advisory Committee (GEAC) decision to approve genetically engineered eggplant, an approval blocked for more than two years now by an edict from a former environment minister. The parliamentary committee report was delivered one day after Maharashtra had cancelled the licence of an Indian company to sell genetically engineered cotton seeds, the kind that has been grown successfully in India for a decade. Then in late October, a committee appointed by the Supreme Court, triggered by an activist PIL, recommended termination of all ongoing GM crop trials, and a 10-year moratorium on field trials of GM food crops. Last week, though, the Centre pronounced the committee’s report “scientifically flawed” and urged the Supreme Court to let crop trials continue.

In today’s Supreme Court hearing in the PIL on GMOs, the Government of India, through its representative from the Ministry of Agriculture (and not the Ministry of Environment & Forests which has the jurisdiction on regulation of GM crops), opposed the scientifically sound recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee to make the GM regulation and testing more robust and trustworthy. The Coalition for a GM-Free India said that the government’s position is a let-down for all those who expect and demand that it fulfils its responsibility towards the interests of biosafety, public health, environment and farmers. Instead, the government seemed to bow to the pressure of the biotech lobby

The Centre on Friday informed the Supreme Court that the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee seeking a 10-year moratorium on field trials on Genetically Modified crops will be highly detrimental and will not be in national interest. [...] Appearing for the Centre, Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati contended that field trials should be allowed to go on as the demand for food for the growing population could be met only through the GM crops. Counsel for various parties also opposed the recommendations.

Before the crucial hearing on 9th November on the interim report of the Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee in the GMOs PIL in the Indian Supreme Court, major farmers’ unions across the country have sent letters to the Court, urging it to put an end to field trials of GM crops. These include many of the biggest and most active farmer unions with many lakhs of farmers as members. [...] Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), in its letter to the court said “One of the primary concerns of the Bhartiya Kisan Union is the issue of unsafe Field Trials happening in the country. There have been several incidences of illegal Field Trials happening across various parts of the country, by biotech companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Du Pont etc. and civil society groups and Farmer Unions have repeatedly expressed their dissent towards such unwanted activities.”

Close to 100 scientists from across the country and several farmers groups have appealed to the Supreme Court to accept in toto the interim report of the court-appointed Technical Expert Committee in the matter of field trials of genetically modified crops. In its interim report submitted to the court, the panel had recommended a ban on field trials of GM crops until the regulatory system was completely overhauled. It also called for a 10-year moratorium on field trials of Bt food crops (which are modified with the Bacillus thuringiensis gene, such as the proposed Bt Brinjal), and a complete ban on field trials of transgenics in crops which originate in India.

There is ‘not a shred of evidence’ that genetically-modified food is harmful to humans yet a committee appointed by the Supreme Court has advised a halt to field trials of such crops disregarding their extensive cultivation in some of the most safety-conscious nations, and despite the need to meet rising food demand domestically. Geneticist and former vice-chancellor of Delhi University Deepak Pental, denounced the committee as ‘scientifically immature’ and termed its report as ‘worthless.’ He was ‘saddened’ that MS Swaminathan, a key scientist behind the Green Revolution, had supported the committee. [...] Journalists, he said, were not only reflecting the anti-science mood created by communists and civil society activists but were also feeding it, some out of ignorance, others for ideological reasons, when they should be acting as referees and reporting on the basis of evidence and not emotion.