RSS affiliates want GM mustard approval withdrawn immediately

BKS calls for CBI and ED probe while office of PM's scientific advisor welcomes it

Days after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) allowed the “environmental release” of genetically modified (GM) mustard, prominent affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh such as the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) have come out in opposition to the approval.

They have asked Union Environment and Forests Minister Bhupendra Yadav to reverse the decision.

The BKS went a step ahead and said the manner in which the GEAC granted the approval was “immoral and illogical”, and smacked of some “unholy” understanding which needed to be probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate.

In sharp contrast, the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister, in a series of tweets issued on Friday, came out in support of the approval.  It said DMH-11 (the trait that was granted clearance) had the potential to improve the mustard yield, which is stagnant at a tonne per hectare, thus opening up avenues to introduce high-yielding and superior mustard hybrids capable of revolutionising mustard cultivation and edible oil production.

“This (the approval) will reduce edible oil imports with the development of heterotic hybrid mustards using the barnase and barstar system of hybrid development, thus ushering in an era of GM mustard hybrid development in the country,” the office said.

Meanwhile, the BKS, which claims to be the largest, organised grouping of farmers, with units in almost all districts of the country, in a statement said GM mustard was known to be harmful for bees and pollination. If this is true, what happens to Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s commitment to promote honey production in the country, it asked. When the current variant of the GM mustard is not known to cause any significant improvement in yield, under whose pressure has the GEAC given this approval, it questioned.

The farmers’ body said the minister of environment and forests should ban such approvals and the government should hold discussion with all to ensure higher remunerative prices for mustard farmers and assured procurement, which would in itself push up yields.

The SJM, in its letter to Yadav, said scientist Deepak Pental’s claim that GM mustard was swadeshi and had been developed in India was “completely untrue”.

“We would like to bring to your notice that in 2002, Proagro Seed Company (Bayer’s subsidiary) applied for commercial approval for a similar construct that Pental and his team are now promoting as HT Mustard DMH 11. Bayer’s application at that point of time was turned down because the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) said that their field trials did not give evidence of superior yield,” the SJM said.

It said it was well known that GM mustard was hybridised through two genes -- barnase and barstar -- derived from a soil bacterium called Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. The bar-barstar-barnase gene is a patented technology of Bayer Crop Science.

“Bayer is not a swadeshi company. How can a product patented in its name be termed swadeshi? The fact that Bayer owns the patent of the genes used in Pental’s mustard has been deliberately concealed from the people of India,” SJM National Co-Convener Ashwini Mahajan wrote in the letter.

It said the data from the Directorate of Rapeseed Mustard Research (DRMR), Bharatpur, showed the claim of Pental that his GM mustard would increase the yield by 26 per cent was deceptive and misleading because there were hybrid varieties that outperformed the transgenic variety DMH-11.

On safety aspects, the SJM said experts who looked at the bio-safety data submitted by the crop developer to Delhi University had pointed out while GM mustard had not been tested rigorously and adequately, and also given that it was a herbicide-tolerant crop, the tests that were taken up in a limited fashion showed the lack of safety of GM mustard to the environment and human health.

“We are confident that as a person who has carefully studied the adverse impacts of GM crops and also published opinion pieces on the same in the past, you will intervene immediately in this matter and ensure that no GM mustard seed is allowed to be planted, now or ever,” the SJM wrote to Yadav.