Farmers unions voice concern over GM mustard crop

Slamming the Centre for pushing "unwanted and unsafe" GM mustard crop, around 50 farmers unions including RSS-affliate Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) today expressed concern over the "secretive" process adopted by it.
Claiming that the government is moving in a "hurried" fashion on the issue, CPI National Secretary D Raja also shot off a letter to Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar urging the latter to ensure that the regulator does not proceed further.
In a joint statement, the Unions also demanded that Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar cancel the scheduled meeting of the regulatory body for transgenics on February 5 and warned they will resist environmental release approval of any Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in the country.

"All major mustard growing states in India, including BJP-ruled states, heeding to citizens voices and scientific advice, have come out against GM mustard. They have also expressed concern about the secretive processes adopted by the regulators and for not putting out biosafety data in the public domain.
"Despite all of this, Prakash Javadekar is allowing Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) to hold its meeting to process the GM mustard application on Friday (Feb 5). It makes us wonder what and wherefrom is the need and pressure emerging from," the statement said.
The farmer unions said the government is pushing "unneeded, unwanted and unsafe" GMOs on the farming community when "viable and feasible" alternatives that are "safe, affordable and farmer-controlled" are already available.

They said that in the case of mustard there are non-transgenic hybrids already available in the market, in addition to high-yielding varieties.

"New agro-ecological approaches like System of Mustard Intensification (SMI) are out-yielding these unsafe solutions significantly, ensuring vastly-increased profitability for farmers, if yield is a concern in the first instance.
The farmers unions maintained that this year lakhs of
farmers in Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Telangana suffered due to whitefly and pink bollworm attack on Bt cotton and alleged the seed companies are going scot-free without being made accountable for the losses.
They said developers of GM mustard hold several patents related to the product and are obviously free to sell these Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) to any large corporation despite "wearing the garb" of public sector scientists.

"The fate of the government in the case of GM mustard will be that of an unwanted land ordinance that the government pressed for again and again, uncaring of the public mood and demand.
"The unions will resist any environmental release approval of any GMO in the country with all their strength, and work towards real solutions that will support farm livelihoods," they said.
Raja, meanwhile, said that reports suggested that the GEAC is about to meet on February 5 and take a decision on commercialisation or environmental release of Delhi University GM Mustard hybrid DMH11.
He said his party has resisted the entry of GMOs into the country's food and agriculture as tansgenci technology is "unsafe, carries its own political economy of taking away farrmers's sovereignty, jeoppardizes our national food security and is clearly risky for our farm livelihoods."

"I write to you to ask the government to first share all the data on this GMO in the public domain.
"I also request you to intervene and ensure that the regulators do not proceed further - this cannot be treated as a routine administrative process and should be treated as a matter of policy and political decision making by the government since the matter has huge implications for our environmental and public health as well as food and livelihood security," Raja wrote in his letter to Javadekar, a copy of which he also sent to Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh.