Agri scientists seek Natarajan’s intervention on GM crops

Hit by the possibility of the government lifting three-year-old moratorium on BT Brinjal, around 150 scientists including some from government institutions has sought environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s intervention to check 'fallacious' campaign in favour of the Genetically Modified crops. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 9, 2013, 18:26:39 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Hit by the possibility of the government lifting three-year-old moratorium on BT Brinjal, around 150 scientists including some from government institutions has sought environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s intervention to check “fallacious” campaign in favour of the Genetically Modified (GM) crops.

The scientists, who have spent huge span of their life in agriculture, believes that the recent affidavit filed by the ministry of agriculture in the Supreme Court saying that without GM crops country’s food security could be jeopardised was ill-founded.

The affidavit was filed in response to report of a Supreme Court appointed technical committee on GM crops which had sought ten year ban on the transgenic crops saying its adverse impact on environment and human being are not well researched in India.

The agriculture ministry on behalf of the government said that transgenic technology was absolutely needed for India’s food security and field trials of transgenic crops were needed for India’s food security.

The environment ministry, which was original respondent in the case filed by social activist Aruna Rodrigues, failed to put forth its view in the case.

“In this letter, we intend to showcase the many serious scientific and policy fallacies in this argument of the ministry of Agriculture,” the scientists said on Saturday, giving global examples on failure of transgenic crops to end malnourishment and increase productivity in a longer run.

The scientists said that it was unclear that now ministry of agriculture was arguing that this controversial, nascent and unproven technology is the panacea to the problem of hunger.

“The first commercialized crops came into being around 16 years ago and to this day, only two commercially viable transgenic traits are present, which are cultivated mainly in 3 countries (United States of America, Brazil and Argentina which grow 77% of all GM crops),” the letter said and added that an overwhelming majority of countries worldwide do not grow GM crops.

The letter signed by scientists who have received Padma Bhushan and Padam Shree from the government also quoted research by leading Indian agriculture scientists Dr KR Kranthi, Director of Central Institute for Cotton Research to say that increase in BT cotton yield was only in initial years.

“No significant yield advantage has been observed between 2004-2011 when area under Bt cotton increased from 5.4% to 96%,” he said, in his paper belying the claims that genetically modified seeds can result in increase in yields for a longer duration.

They have sought Natarajan’s intervention to project the adverse side of GM crops and present a holistic picture before the court, which has to take a final view on the technical committee’s recommendations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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