Govt approves field trials for varieties of GM crops

The new government has approved field trials for 21 new varieties of genetically modified (GM) crops, including staples such as rice and wheat. The controversial move is considered crucial to feeding India’s teeming millions but opposed by some activists as a health hazard.

Updated on: Jul 15, 2014, 24:09:10 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The new government has approved field trials for 21 new varieties of genetically modified (GM) crops, including staples such as rice and wheat. The controversial move is considered crucial to feeding India’s teeming millions but opposed by some activists as a health hazard.

Supporters of the modern technology say GM crops can help improve yield by re-engineering the genetic code and stabilise food prices.

The government approval comes despite the fact that the Supreme Court is currently deliberating on the biosafety of GM crops.

The issue has been highly controversial in India, which has so far allowed only BT cotton to be commercially grown. In 2010, then environment minister Jairam Ramesh rejected a move to grow BT brinjals.

The BJP termed that decision “wrong”. Sources said the newly-constituted genetic engineering appraisal committee (GEAC), which include a majority of bio-technology supporters, rejected only one proposal out of the 28 considered by it.

Other crops approved for the field trials include several varieties of maize and cotton. Another six were deferred for discussion because of want of sufficient information.

GEAC chairman Hem Pande, who is also additional secretary in the environment ministry, claimed that the committee could not meet for a year as there was “miscommunication” on part of the government that the SC had imposed a ban on GM crop field trials.

Calling it not a “factual case”, Pande indirectly also blamed former environment minister Jayanti Natarajan saying this perception was based on the recommendations of a SC-appointed expert panel, minutes of the GEAC meeting accessed by HT showed.

Another committee member P M Bhargava, however, disagreed, saying Natarajan had not put a moratorium “without reason”. “This was evident from a letter sent by (Natarajan) to Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) in this connection,” he said in a dissent note.

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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