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first time I saw the gargantuan size of the genetically modified Vidalia onion in the United States, I was afraid to touch it. The gobhi never cooked up right, for it tasted like cotton buds and less like what we know as gobhi at home. The cabbage was limp, not crisp and green. The baingan, or eggplant as they call it, was another voluminous affair, all size and no substance. All the NRIs’ brides who cook authentic Indian dishes in their suburban American homes and sigh because it never tastes like it did back home don’t realise that the GM (genetically modified) baingan bharta would never taste like the real thing.
When you switch over to GM food, you give up what was the intrinsic taste of the vegetable. GM veggies look ample and taste nothing like the real thing. If you eat GM veggies, you can count on giving up your velvety baingan bhartas, khushboodar muli parathas and luxuriant palak paneer.
This July, the Indian government formally announced a plan to introduce genetically modified food — tomato, brinjal and cauliflower — in the country within the next three years. This is the first time the Agriculture Ministry has officially endorsed the use of GM food crops. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Department of Biotechnology have approved the three transgenic crops that are apparently in various stages of tests and development in institutes across the country.
The final clearance for allowing cultivation of these GM crops will be given by the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation and the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). Till date, India has only allowed the harvesting of genetically modified cotton — a non-food crop.
GM or genetic modification involves altering an organism’s genome by altering its DNA, transferring a new gene to it, or switching off a certain gene in that organism. To give a simple example, scientists have created a frost-resistant tomato plant by adding an antifreeze gene from a coldwater fish to it.
In a wider GM arena, the US has been the biggest producer of GM crops. The US Biotech giant Monsanto produces 90 per cent of the GM food world wide, owns exclusive rights to biotechnology and patents. GM crops account for more than 18 per cent of US agriculture which produces 96 per cent of the world’s edible GM organisms – GMOs.
According to ISAAA reports, in 2007, countries that grew 97 per cent of the global transgenic crops were the United States (57 per cent), Argentina (19 per cent), Brazil (15 per cent), Canada (7 per cent), India (6 per cent), China (3 per cent), Paraguay (2 per cent) and South Africa (1 per cent). Although growth has reduced in the industrialised nations, it is increasing in the developing countries.
Europe has traditionally been hostile to GM crops. The European approach has been cautious, driven by the fact that there is little information on the long-term effects of GM food which may be assessed only after intense and prolonged research.
US companies in their pursuit of greater markets and exports have faced a pitched battle in Europe. Many parts of Europe have vehemently opposed GM exports from the US. Protest has come from farmers as well as consumers and environmental groups.
What are the long-term side effects of eating GM food? Are human beings supposed to consume tomatoes that have a gene of a coldwater fish? Or fish that can attain maturity in an unusually short time? Health impact of consuming products that have recombinant gene is not proven; at least effects of consumption over a considerable period has not been tested for it to be certified completely safe.
Does the average person know that the BT brinjal carries a gene of Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring bacterium that produces crystal proteins that are lethal to insect larvae?
Licensing contract for the use of GM seeds is an effective tool that biotech companies use to control future revenues. Indian farmers have traditionally saved a portion of their seeds for the next batch of harvest. Once they switch over to GM seeds, they will have to abandon this traditional practice and buy licensed seeds from companies like Monsanto to continue agriculture.
Monsanto owns the right to the ‘terminator seed’ technology — a technique that turns seeds sterile after a completed harvest. If this technology is to be licensed eventually, it would mean virtual biotech control over seeds.
The so-called BT cotton success story is not impregnable. India is the third largest producer of cotton after China and the US. The Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co. Ltd, Mahyco, is one of the largest seed companies in India. In 1998, Monsanto became a 50 per cent shareholder in the company and received approval to conduct countrywide field trials. The data compiled was never made public.
In 2002, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee of India gave conditional clearance to Monsanto and Mahyco for commercial planting of Bt Cotton. The production of cotton has considerably increased since 2003. However, this technology as touted by Mahyco, as intrinsically yield increasing, is not accurate; rather it provides added protection to the crops in heavy pest seasons. The technology is also much more costly and in areas where the farmers are struggling with soil condition or water scarcity, it would provide little benefit.
Days after the government announced introduction of genetically modified food crops in the country, Hillary Clinton who happened to be on her first visit as the US Secretary of State, which included a trip to India’s leading agriculture institute (PUSA), heartily supported transferring ‘cutting-edge technology’ to raise crop yields.
Like many proponents of GM industry, Hillary Clinton mouthed the shibboleths — world hunger and high yielding crops. It would be pertinent to mention at this point that the newly appointed Senior Adviser to the US’ Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) is none other than ill-reputed Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s ex-vice president and chief lobbyist.
But then, hunger is not a direct consequence of scanty harvest. It is a by-product of social and political systems and the inequalities that these cause. Some GM proponents have hailed the GM ‘Golden Rice’ — a rice genetically modified to contain higher levels of Vitamin A, the lack of which causes blindness in the poorer countries. However, more than 12 million people in India who suffer from vitamin A deficiency live in food deficit areas or simply cannot afford to buy food.
People who go blind because they cannot eat enough — can they really buy the expensive Golden Rice? GM research and production are costly ventures and the biotech companies expect to make substantial profits on their investment. Many GM technology, plants and seeds are already patented by the leading GM companies, it would be childish to believe that the ex-gratia support of the US government is for the future of a hunger-free India.
It is true that GM has potential for mankind in medicine, agriculture and food. It can also help generate bio-fuel. Its long-term benefits to India can be producing crops of improved nutritional quality and crops that will grow under previously inhospitable conditions. Hunger is a real threat when the world population is over six billion and predicted to double in the next 50 years.
On July 17, 2009, in an interview to Rediff Business, Gilles-Eric Seralini, an eminent French Professor of Molecular Biology who has analysed the research data of BT brinjal, the first transgenic vegetable of India, claimed that the analysis and precision of the testing that Mayhco used for BT brinjal was far from satisfactory. He also flagged several issues which India’s top scientists who sit as the highest regulators on the Genetic Engineering Approvals Committee had overlooked, for example, the flaws in the toxicity test of BT brinjal.
There is very little transparency in GM testing. The biotech companies keep their technology under tight lids and are unwilling to share with the public details like blood analyses of experimental rats and mammals. Most tests do not last over 90 days. Some environmentalists believe that GM foods will lead to unexpected allergic reaction and diseases when consumed by humans. Some have speculated about antibiotic resistant genes spreading to pathogens in the body.
India seems to have become the favourite destination for the biotech industry. Besides cotton, genetic engineering experiments are being conducted on maize, mustard, sugarcane, sorghum, pigeonpea, chickpea, rice, tomato, brinjal, potato, banana, papaya, cauliflower, oilseeds, castor, soyabean and medicinal plants.
Experiments are also underway on several species of fish. The sudden spurt in GM experiments is fuelled by funding from the biotech companies like Syngenta and Monsanto as well as support from international groups.
As simply put by a parliamentarian in Europe, wealthy companies are not here to feed the poor and save the environment. They are here to capture markets and make money. GM business is owned by top-notch multinationals and agribusiness has the potential to become a long-standing profit making business for them especially in a country like India with huge markets and an agricultural base.
GM technology requires careful, unbiased and long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms could be safely released into the food supply. Is the Indian regulatory system equipped to deal with the new scope? Is the regulatory process unbiased and rigorous?
Would the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee make all relevant test data public before taking decisions on the introduction of GM products? Would mandatory labelling of any food product containing GM ingredients be enforced?
After all, it is my body. I should be able to choose what I put in
it.