The lone voice of dissent in the Supreme Court appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on GM crops, former director of Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) Dr R S Paroda is believed to have severely criticized the recommendations of the Committee to uphold a moratorium on field trials of GM crops on the grounds that if the suggestions are accepted that two decades of research on GM crops done by the public institutions in India will go waste.
Officials said Paroda has said in his submission that confined filed trials of crops is must to evaluate its superiority as against other crops since field conditions cannot be simulated under controlled conditions.
Paroda was appointed after an earlier agriculture expert V.L. Chopra declined to be on the panel.
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Favouring the field trials of GM crops, Paroda said that India’s regulatory system has to be implemented rigorously with utmost efficiency.
He also said that the threats to environmental and biodiversity loss due to cultivation of GM crops as mentioned in the interim report of the TEC are grossly exaggerated.
Officials said Paroda is also of the view that institutions like Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) and Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) should work hand in hand to coordinate and monitor field trials of GM crops as has been the case during BT cotton.
He also suggested that it would not be advisable to set up a single institution for all biosafety tests, instead of network of laboratories be established.
The TEC in its report has reportedly also said that field trials of GM food crops should not be allowed as there is no definite information on long term safety of Bt on food crops.
Officials in the know said that the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) comprising of experts in the fields of molecular biology, toxicology, nutrition science, and biodiversity and agriculture science in its final report has also recommended that any commercial release GM crops for which India is a centre of origin or diversity should not be allowed.
Crops like brinjal, okra etc fall under this category.