Says, Dr Uday Annapure – associate professor – food chemistry, coordinator for food biotechnology at Food Engineering and Technology Department, ICT Mumbai [...], “GM food is the only option for us to attain food security in present and future. [...]” Currently, Dr Annapure is on a US visit, supported by department of science and technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, to study application of Pulsed Electric Field in fruit juice preservation, particularly on grape juice.

Union Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh has asked the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee to immediately withdraw its permission to Monsanto for field trials of Bt maize in Bihar. Bt brinjal was the first, and maize is the second food crop for which the GEAC has given permission for field trials in India. Mr. Ramesh’s intervention came after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told him personally that he was ”opposed” to field trials of Bt maize — a food crop — in Bihar as he was not aware of the risks involved and wanted the GEAC to withdraw its permission.

Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture, which is based on natural farming, is fast catching up with small and marginal farmers in Andhra Pradesh. [...] CMSA had also introduced a paradigm shift in agriculture practices moving from input-centric agriculture model to knowledge and skill-based model, making the best use of locally available natural resources and taking advantage of natural processes. [...] While paddy growing farmers saved Rs. 4,124 per hectare, cotton growers saved Rs. 14,500 per hectare and chilli growing farmers Rs. 40,750 per hectare.

The protest in New Delhi which would be attended by farmers from different states in the country would also demand the central government to withdraw the Seed Bill from being placed in the Parliament. ”We will insist that the MPs not to extend their support to the bill,” [Chukki Nanjundaswamy, convener of South Asia Conference of Farmer’s Federations] said. She added that the genetically modified seeds were also emerging as a threat to traditional seeds.

”The conference resolved to destroy the field trials of GM seeds on agriculture fields wherever it is done anywhere in the country,” she added.

In its less-than-impressive fight against malnourishment, India is set to deploy a new weapon: super foods from ”bio-fortified” crops packed with nutrients. The first of these, high-iron pearl millet, will be introduced in 20112. Indian research facilities are also close to breeding high-zinc wheat and provitamin-A rice and maize. ”Together, they have the potential to improve nutrition of millions,” said Kedar Rai, the director of HarvestPlus, part of a globally funded alliance that has introduced super foods in impoverished Sub-Saharan Africa.

Farmer groups here on Wednesday called upon an expert committee appointed by the Rajasthan Government to recommend annulment of a controversial agreement signed with the US-based multinational biotechnology company Monstanto in July last year for assistance in agricultural research and promotion of genetically modified seeds on the pretext of supply of hybrid seeds to farmers in the State. [...] The three groups pointed out that Monsanto has had a controversial history in India forcing the farmers into a ”mounting debt trap” after their failed trials of the GM seeds, which led to the poor crop yields, increased need for pesticides and the compulsion to use seeds sold by the multinational giant at very high prices.

Crop yields from India’s first genetically modified crop may have been overemphasized, as modest rises in crop yields may come at the expense of sustainable farm management, says a new study by a Washington University in St. Louis anthropologist. [...] ”Conditions in the cotton fields change quickly. Populations of insects not affected by Bt have now begun to explode. We can’t forget that cotton farmers enthusiastically adopted pesticide sprays in the 1990s, only to watch them quickly lose their effectiveness.” Stone shows that the farmers’ real problem was never just with cotton pests.

A leading Indian biochemist has urged the environment and forests ministry to lift the moratorium on Bt brinjal, the country’s first genetically modified food crop developed using a technology supplied by the US multinational seed giant Monsanto.”The moratorium is not affecting the multinational companies but India’s own scientists who are ready with more than a dozen GM crops, including (Vitamin-A rich) golden rice,” said Govindarajan Padmanabhan at the Indian Institute of Science here.

Kerala is split when it comes to the genetically modified. While the government has consistently taken a position against anything GM, and has vowed to keep the state GM-free as a matter of policy, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which rules the state, has quite the opposite view. The differences have now come into the open in the wake of recent approval from the genetic engineering approval committee of the Union ministry of environment & forests for GM rubber.

With a moratorium on cultivation of GM crops, pro-biotech crops group are now mobilising opinion in states for allowing farmers to cultivate genetically modified produce.

The pro-GM crops group include prominent farm leader Sharad Joshi. ”We have met Agriculture minister and senior officials of Agriculture/Horticulture departments of Karnataka, West Bengal, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat to convince them about merits of cultivating biotech crops,” executive director, ABLE (Association of Biotech Led Enterprise) Sivramiah Shantharam told a news agency.