India backs genetically modified crops
21 January 1999 (Nature Vol 397, page 188)
[NEW DELHI] Undeterred by criticism from environmental groups, the Indian government announced last week that it will encourage the use of genetically modified seeds in agriculture, and also give high priority to transgenic crop research because of the "urgency to enhance food production and develop crops with desired traits."
But government officials assured the critics that the 1998 revised recombinant DNA safety guidelines and biosafety protocols would be fully observed during research stage and field trials and before marketing of modified seeds.
The announcement came in the form a statement from heads of agricultural research, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and regulatory committees who held a press conference in New Delhi in the wake of mounting protests against the controversial trials of Bt cotton by Monsanto in 40 locations in nine states of India.
Angry farmers in Karnataka state burned down the experimental fields a few weeks ago, while the government of Andhra Pradesh stopped the trials. Early this month the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), a non-governmental organization in Delhi, slapped a law suit on DBT in Delhi high court for authorizing the trial by-passing the ministry of environment.
At the press conference, however, the officials justified the Monsanto trials by saying that these could lead to saving of pesticides worth $375 million annually, and accused critics of misleading the environmental groups.
"With 60 million acres of transgenic plants under cultivation worldwide, India cannot lag behind others in this technology," said Manju Sharma secretary of DBT. She said that DBT is actively funding transgenic research in tobacco, rice, wheat and potato and has also given permission to three more private companies for field trial of mustard, tomato and cauliflower. The $100 million World Bank supported national agricultural technology project would be used to mount major research in transgenic crops, according to the officials.
According to Asis Datta, chairman of the DBT committee which approved the Monsanto trials, the Bt cotton was first tried in a plot of 25 square metres and then in five plots of 200 square metres each before allowing it to be grown on one-acre fields in 40 different locations nation-wide.
Vandana Shiva, president of RFSTE says the trials were illegal because the planting started in June 1998 ahead of official permission which was given in July, and were not cleared by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee under the ministry of environment, which has the final say in this matter.
K. S. JAYARAMAN
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Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1999 Registered No. 785998 England.