Tuesday, April 17, 2012
BT brinjal row
BT brinjal row: National Biodiversity Authority decides to prosecute Monsanto
By Savita Verma
India Today
April 17, 2012
The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), the country’s biodiversity-preservation watchdog, has finally woken up to its job.
It has decided to prosecute multinational seed company Monsanto for allegedly using Indian brinjal varieties for commercial purposes without permission.
The decision was taken in a vote at a meeting on February 28, 2012. The majority of the members voted in favour of initiating action against Monsanto for violating India’s biodiversity law.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests, too, is in favour of prosecuting the seed giant.
The vote was essential as some board members of the NBA were against holding Monsanto to task, sources said.
The decision is bound to send a clear cut message that any attempt to fiddle with the country’s biological wealth will not go unpunished.
Friday, April 13, 2012
GM trials hit hurdle
States say no, GM trials hit hurdle
By Chetan Chauhan
Hindustan Times
April 13, 2012
India’s biotechnology regulator will be apprising the state governments of benefits of Genetically Modified (GM) food crops as country’s biotechnology industry is hitting a roadblock because of many states saying no to GM crops.
The latest in the list is Congress ruled Rajasthan which has refused to allow field trials of GM crops. ”No trials of GM crops should be conducted in the State until final decision in this matter is taken,” said an order issued by state government. ”The government, after considering different aspects of it, has taken a view to wait until a national consensus is evolved.”
Like many other state governments Rajasthan government also felt that unless the Central government decides on the fate of GM food crops such as BT Brinjal, on whose commercial release environment ministry issued a moratorium in 2010, the field trials may not be allowed.
Most of the bigger states such as Bihar, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal had refused to give no-objection certificate for field trials.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
India’s Bt cotton fraud
Untangling India’s Bt cotton fraud
By Latha Jishnu
downtoearth.org.in
February 15, 2012
ICAR’s top research institutes and GEAC exposed in Bt cotton research scam
WHEN the much-awaited public sector Bt or genetically modified (GM) cotton was released for cultivation in 2009, there was celebration in the scientific establishment. And in the farming community Bikaneri Narma (BN Bt) was trumpeted as India’s “completely indigenous Bt variety” and farmers were looking forward to cheaper cotton seeds. There was an added advantage to BN Bt: unlike the Bt hybrids of private companies the Bt variety could be reused by cultivators. Along with the variety, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) also released the Bt NHH 44 hybrid.
That euphoria was short-lived because the seeds were withdrawn from the market after the first season. The reasons given at the time were poor performance of the seed and reports of “contamination”. There was also speculation at the time of sabotage. Now, almost two years down the line the full details of the unsavoury episode have emerged and, according to old ICAR hands, this is possibly the biggest research scandal involving as it does the Indian Agriculture Research Institute’s prestigious National Research Centre for Plant Biotechnology (NRCPB).
Along with NRCPB, whose director Polumetla Ananda Kumar supplied the unique Cry1Ac gene construct for the project, a premier academic institution, the University of Agricultural Sciences-Dharwad (UAS-D), is at the heart of this scandal. What the episode reveals is the hubris of some of the scientists involved in the project, the lack of scientific rigour in ICAR to understand the complexities of such a project and, worst of all, the conflict of interest between crop developers and the regulator, the Genetic Engineering Approval (now changed to Appraisal) Committee (GEAC). Also exposed is the GEAC’s lax scrutiny of data submitted by crop developers. Tainted, too, by association is the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), Nagpur, which conducted the field trials and was given the task of commercialising the Bt seeds.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Bio-piracy charges dropped
Bio-piracy charges dropped against two US companies
By DNA Correspondent
DNAIndia
February 11, 2012
Karnataka State Biodiversity Board, the regulatory body to implement the Biological Diversity Act, decided to drop the earlier planned legal action against US-based seed companies involved in bio-piracy.
The Indian Biodiversity Authority (IBA) had assured in August last year that it would initiate legal action against the US-based seed companies Monsanto and Mahyco for developing a genetically modified eggplant.
The decision was taken in the 19th meeting of the board held last month. After the city-based NGO, Environment Support Group (ESG) filed complaint of bio-piracy in February last, the board investigated the issues and confirmed its intent to prosecute violators.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Bayer compensates farmers
Bayer Crop Science told to compensate Maharashtra farmers for poor BT cotton yields
By Jayashree Bhosale
The Economic Times
February 8, 2012
PUNE - The Maharashtra government has ordered the Indian unit of Bayer Crop Science, the world’s largest agrochemicals company, to pay 45 lakh as compensation to 164 farmers as one of its BT cotton hybrids did not deliver the promised yield, the first instance of a seed company being asked to make good farmers’ losses.
“We welcome the fact that the government has taken the side of farmers,” said Kavitha Kuruganthi of the Association for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, an umbrella body for farmer-rights NGOs.
An order passed by Maharashtra’s agriculture commissioner, Umakant Dangat, said these farmers belonging to Dhule district had been ‘cheated’ because the pest resistance capacity of Bayer Bioscience’s SurPass 1037, one of its BT cotton variety, failed to meet minimum standards.
“The company had claimed on its label that its seed was less susceptible to pest and disease. But we found that to be not true. It is a fact that farmers suffered losses. We calculated the compensation based on average yield in that region and the average market price,” Dangat told ET.
Bayer BioScience has disputed the order and is looking at legal remedies. “As per our investigations, the yields below expectations in a few pockets are due to combination of inadequate crop management and adverse environmental conditions. We are in the process of contesting the unjustifiable claims through a legal course,” said the company.
BT cotton is the test case for introduction of biotech food crops in India. KK Kranthi, director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research, said the pest attack in the affected fields was not related to BT. “These could be isolated cases,” he said.