Environment ministry releases response to Coalition of GM-free India’s allegations over environmental approval to GM crop

The Coalition for a GM-free India, a pan-Indian citizen’s platform, has claimed the Union environment ministry’s response to allegations over violating statutory regulations to approve genetically modified (GM) mustard were evidence that due procedures were not followed.

The coalition, a group of farmers, activists, researchers and scientists, has locked horns with the Union government, demanding adequate information on the grounds for the approval of the controversial Dhara Mustard Hybrid (DMH-11), which received the nod October 18, 2022.

There were 15 instances where the Union government compromised on appraising and approving the GM mustard, the coalition claimed January 6, 2023.

Activists write to environment ministry against allowing commercial use of genetically modified crops

The Indian variety of GM Mustard was conceived in 2022 by Deepak Pental, the then-vice chancellor of Delhi University.

Genetically modified crops may soon get the central government nod, a move that could pose a threat to crop diversity, food security and increase tolerance for use of pesticides. The move might also severely affect the agrarian sector, as the seed market will be in the hands of private companies instead of farmers, according to experts.

500 tonnes of Indian GMO rice were used in many countries to make, among other things, sweets for the Mars company

You may have seen recent reports about an unauthorised GMO turning up in some Mars products. The article below sheds more light on the contamination.

Chandigarh: Cotton crop in several districts of Haryana and Punjab has been hit by pink bollworm, one of the most destructive pests, this season. Among the districts affected by the pink bollworm are Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Mahendragarh and Jind of Haryana and Bathinda and Mansa of Punjab. Ashish Mehta, a cotton farmer from Mandi Dabwali in Sirsa said almost 30 to 40 per cent of the farmers' crop has been damaged due to the pest in his area. Before Bt cotton was introduced in the region around 2005, farmers used to suffer heavy losses due to frequent attacks of American bollworm on their cotton crop. However, the Bt cotton, or Bollgard as it is called, was considered resistant to pests. But the infestation now has left the farmers in distress, as they feel they might have to suffer the pest attacks every year as it occurred prior to 2005. According to experts, the female moth of pink bollworm lays eggs in a cotton boll, and when the larvae emerge from the eggs, they inflict damage through feeding. They chew through the cotton lint to feed on the seeds. Since cotton is used for both fiber and seed oil, the damage is twofold, tell the experts. "Since the eggs and larvae are inside the flower, the farmers are unable to even know about the pest attack till the cotton fruits open up. By then it is already too late," said Mehta.

NEW DELHI: The Coalition for a GM-Free India, a civil society platform that had been opposed to transgenic technologies being deployed in the country, has termed the Centre's recent decision to import GM soymeal as patently illegal, saying the move will now be legally challenged as the import would expose citizens to the hazards of unsafe gene technologies.

Abstract

Since its introduction in India, Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton technology has been the object of controversial scholarly and non-academic debate. The recent return of pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella) pests in several Indian states has provided cause for concern about widespread resistances in Lepidopteran pests towards the endotoxins produced in Indian Bt cotton plants as well as about severe setbacks in regard to cotton farmers’ livelihood security. This study is the first to provide empirical evidence on the socio-economic consequences of recent bollworm attacks in India based on an exploratory study conducted in Karimnagar district, Telangana, India. It analyses the changed vulnerabilities that smallholders currently face and identifies the reasons why some peasant farmers can only deal with the consequences of this technological failure to a limited extent.

In his latest book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates lays out a plan to stop global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero. A fact that seems a little ironic coming from one of the world’s largest emitters[1], whose “guilty pleasure” is flying on private jets and who just joined a bid to acquire the world’s largest private jet services company[2]. Though he attempts to waves this fact away by claiming to make sure that his miles are offset, and his jet uses only “sustainable fuel”. But this sort of contradiction, of placating a severe root problem with a superficial or false solution, is nothing strange for Gates, as a closer look into his million-dollar investments, billionaire and private company partnerships, and his political agenda show little alignment with the goal of truly curving climate change, helping alleviate world hunger, or lifting the poor out of poverty.

Several countries have started issuing genetically modified (GM)-free certificates for imported food crop consignments, after initial resistance to India’s regulation seeking such certificates that became effective on 1 March.

The US, Brazil, Russia, and Japan, among other countries, had raised objections to the regulation, contending that it would create a trade barrier and add to the cost borne by exporters.

On 21 August 2020, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued an order requiring a “non-GM origin and GM-free certificate", issued by the competent national authority of the exporting country, to accompany all imports of 24 listed food products to India, to become effective beginning 1 January. The date was later revised to 1 March.

NEW DELHI: Bowing to the pressure of RSS-linked farm outfit Bhartiya Kisan Sangh and heeding to the unwillingness of some states, the Centre has junked its decision of allowing scientific field trials of transgenic crops including indigenously developed Bt brinjal.

She's been called the "Gandhi of grain", the "rock star" of the anti-GMO movement and an "eco-warrior goddess". For more than 40 years, the Indian physicist turned ecologist and food rights advocate Vandana Shiva has taken on big agriculture, arguing that we can end world hunger and help save the planet while also preserving the unique cultural and culinary traditions that make our world so wonderfully diverse.

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Colonialism and industrialism have destroyed the Earth and indigenous cultures through four false assumptions.

First, that we are separate from nature and not a part of nature. Second, that nature is dead matter, mere raw material for industrial exploitation. Third, that indigenous cultures are inferior and primitive, and need to be “civilised” through civilising missions of permanent colonization. Fourth, that nature and cultures need improvement through manipulation and external inputs. Green Revolution, GMOs, gene editing are rooted in this false assumption.

I wrote Earth Democracy to show that globalisation had created deregulated commerce and unleashed limitless greed, which was leading to economies of ecocide and genocide.