Hindustan
Times: New Delhi: Monday, 27 October 2014.
The environment ministry has allowed field trials
of two varieties of genetically modified (GM) brinjal and mustard, almost 18
months after the previous government ordered a freeze on such tests. In a reply
to an RTI query early October, the ministry said on August 21, it permitted the
Delhi University to hold trials for a mustard variety and Maharashtra-based
Bejo Seeds Pvt Ltd to test Bt brinjal.
The decision does away with the uncertainty
surrounding the biotech sector. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar had been
saying the government had not taken a decision on field trials while
maintaining “science cannot be stopped”.
There is a huge debate surrounding GM crops that
are strongly resisted by organisations that question their safety and cite concerns
that the country’s food security could be compromised due to monopolising farm
biotech MNCs. The Supreme Court is hearing a public interest litigation that
has sought a ban on open field trials.
The ministry’s nod came after the country’s
biotech regulator, the genetic engineering appraisal committee (GEAC), approved
trials of more than 30 varieties in two batches this year.
The go-ahead, a ministry official said, was an
indication of the positive outlook of the Modi government towards the use of “science”
to boost agriculture production.
The process of field trials, a necessary step to
evaluate a GM technology’s efficacy and safety before commercial approval, had
nearly come to a halt during the previous UPA regime.
The DU’s Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop
Plants, headed by former vice-chancellor Deepak Pental, got the permission to
conduct trials for a new variety of GM mustard two years after filing an
application with GEAC, the ministry said.
Nod for Bejo Seeds came after a year. Former
environment minister Jairam Ramesh had imposed a moratorium on commercial
release of Bt brinjal in 2010.
“Either the minister is being misled by the
bureaucrats, or the public is being misled by the minister. For gains of few
companies, people and farmers are being blindfolded. Mr Javadekar should come
out in public and end this double-talk,” said Manvendra Singh, a Greenpeace
campaigner who filed the RTI plea.
The UPA government’s decision to freeze trials was
wrong as these were conducted in labs and that, too, after state governments’
permission, the official said. “The Supreme Court had never asked the
government to impose the moratorium,” the official said.
Several states such as Haryana, Maharashtra and
Punjab have asked agriculture universities to ensure that the GEAC safety
conditions for field trials were complied with, the reply said.
GM crops are those in which genetic material is
altered to provide some perceived advantage either to the producer or consumer,
such as pest resistance or better nutrition.
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